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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28541673">When the Bells Ring</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoxphyre/pseuds/Phoxphyre'>Phoxphyre</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, I'm so sorry Marcus, Just about every other character in Carry On makes an appearance, Last Battle (kind of), M/M, Minor character death (alternate timeline), Suicidal Thoughts, Vampire Biting, not so much canon divergent as setting canon on fire and blowing on it, this is the darkest timeline</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 22:55:06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>20,590</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28541673</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoxphyre/pseuds/Phoxphyre</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of the confrontation in the White Chapel, Simon wishes he had never been born…and gets his wish. Transported to an alternate timeline, he must confront the impact of his life on those close to him and on the World of Mages as a whole. </p>
<p>Basically, <i>It’s a Wonderful Life</i> for Carry On. </p>
<p>Content warning: Suicidal ideation (because…It’s a Wonderful Life)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch &amp; Simon Snow, Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>138</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>When the Bells Ring</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>The hugest of thank yous to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/aralias/pseuds/aralias">Aralias</a>, who—when I sent this to her—said, “It has all my favorite tags!” and then proceeded to leave me a whole bunch of probing comments that made me think more deeply about the logic of the world and Simon’s arc. (I'm not sure I got all your subplots in, but...biting!) </p>
<p>I’m also indebted to the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode <i>The Wish</i> and <a href="https://theflyingpeach.tumblr.com/post/637165400659017728/just-thinking-abt-how-simon-and-baz-call-each">this meta from theflyingpeach</a> on Simon and Baz’s names.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Christmas Day, 2015</strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong>The White Chapel</strong>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I wake up suddenly.</p>
<p>I was having the most terrible dream, full of blood and grief and pain. For a moment I don’t want to open my eyes. I just want to rest here in my bed in Mummers House and listen to Baz’s breathing—</p>
<p>Baz.</p>
<p>My eyes snap open.</p>
<p>And it all comes rushing back: the Mage. The White Chapel. Ebb.</p>
<p>It was real, all of it.</p>
<p>The Mage is dead. And I killed him.</p>
<p>I was the Humdrum.</p>
<p>Penny and Baz are lying on either side of me, still asleep. Penny looks soft and peaceful, all the sharp edges sanded off of her by exhaustion. If it weren’t for the chaos of blood and broken glass around her she might be asleep in her own bed.</p>
<p>And Baz—Baz looks grey and hollow. He still has blood around his mouth where he fed on the birds. (Which isn’t like him; he’s fastidious when he feeds. I know that, now.)</p>
<p>I’m avoiding looking beyond them, and it makes me angry. I should have to look at what I’ve done.</p>
<p>I make myself raise my eyes.</p>
<p>There, on the far side of Penny: the Mage, still covered with my grey suit jacket.</p>
<p>And there, on the other side of Baz: Ebb. She looks peaceful. There’s a small smile on her lips, and her blue eyes are looking up at the sky. If it weren’t for all the red pooling around her she might be asleep too.</p>
<p>I wish I could cry more—I feel like I <em>should</em> cry—but there’s a great gaping emptiness in my chest where the tears should be. (Where the <em>magic</em> should be.) It’s as if all the Humdrum’s holes relocated inside me.</p>
<p>I surge up from the floor. My wings snap out (I still have wings) and in a heartbeat I’m through the blasted-out windows and into the cold air beyond. I don’t have any magic left (I think it’s gone; I think I poured it all into the Humdrum.) But apparently I can still fly.</p>
<p>There are headlights below, shouts and people moving through the snow. The Coven will be in the Chapel soon (the shattered windows are a bit of a giveaway) and then they’ll know what I am.</p>
<p>It will be better for Baz and Penny if I’m not there. Maybe the Coven will go easy on them if they can blame everything on me. (Not that Baz and Penny <em>would</em>. Well, maybe Baz would. But he tried to save me; he would have killed the Mage himself if I hadn’t stopped him. So maybe he doesn’t blame me <em>too</em> much for what happened in Hampshire.) But the Coven will be happy to pin the blame on me, I think.</p>
<p>Which is fair, because it’s my fault.</p>
<p>All of it.</p>
<p>I wish I could go back and say goodbye. I wish I could wash the blood from Baz’s face and see if he wouldn’t mind kissing me one more time.</p>
<p>Instead I soar over the wall where we fought the dragon and circle once over Watford. The windows in the turret of Mummers are dark, but there’s a light in the windows of Ebb’s barn. I hope someone will think to put it out. I hope they’ll find a good home for all her china animals. I hope someone will check on the goats.</p>
<p>Then I lose myself in the sky.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>For a long time I just fly. I don’t want to think, so I don’t—just lose myself in the pumping of my wings, putting miles between myself and the White Chapel.</p>
<p>I find myself at last on Blackfriars Bridge. Not below it, where Baz says the numpties live, but up on top. The streets are empty and I’m all alone up here. The red railing has a coating of snow and feels like ice beneath my hands, but I’m already so cold from the flight that I hardly notice. (I tried <em>thinking</em> myself warm like I did before, but nothing happened.)</p>
<p>The Thames churns past below, icy and sluggish and unconcerned. I lean over the railing, wondering if the fall will be enough to kill me. I wonder if it will hurt. (Surely it can’t hurt any worse?)</p>
<p>I think people used to fill their pockets with rocks, to make sure. If Penny were here, she would tell me to look it up. If Baz were here, he’d tell me that I’m the worst chosen one to ever be chosen.</p>
<p><em>You can’t even kill yourself correctly, you absolute nightmare,</em> he’d say. I smile a bit, thinking of it.</p>
<p>I’m glad he’s not here.</p>
<p>He’ll be angry with me, probably. Penny, too. But eventually they’ll see the truth.</p>
<p>I only ever put them in danger. I put the whole <em>World of Mages</em> in danger.</p>
<p><em>I</em> was the greatest threat to magic.</p>
<p>And sure, I seem to have defeated the Humdrum. (Bully for me.) But I also <em>caused</em> him. And if I stay, who’s to say I won’t do something worse? (I’m not sure what that could be, but my track record for <em>peace and quiet</em> is shit.) Penny said it herself: I attract trouble.</p>
<p>I just want it to <em>stop</em>.</p>
<p>
  <em>Stop hurting me.</em>
</p>
<p>I close my eyes. Take a deep breath. Will my wings to lie flat against my back.</p>
<p>Then something hurtles past my right shoulder and into the water below.</p>
<p>My eyes fly open indignantly. (This is <em>my</em> suicide attempt!)</p>
<p>I scan the river. There: a person, being carried rapidly downstream. The current is deceptively fast. I can see the white oval of a face looking up at me.</p>
<p>Before I can stop to think my wings are opening, carrying me over the rail.</p>
<p>I get my hands under the bloke’s armpits. (It’s a man, heavy and waterlogged.) My wings strain, trying to lift him from the water. And all of a sudden it’s as if the exhaustion catches up to me. My wings spasm, fold, and dump me into the water.</p>
<p>I come up sputtering and thrashing. The water is so cold that it steals the breath from my lungs. It would be hilarious if I survived all <em>this</em> only to die of hypothermia. (Thus endeth Simon Snow, who died as he lived. Idiotically.)</p>
<p>I’m a strong swimmer. (It’s an essential Chosen One skill.) I hook my arm across the bloke’s chest and strike out for the shore. My wings are no help at all. They keep trying to fly—which doesn’t work at <em>all</em> in the water—and my tail keeps tangling up in my legs. Eventually I get the wings tucked against my back and it gets a little easier. The man, who is somehow still conscious, even helps a little.</p>
<p>Finally I drag myself out of the water onto the gravelly sand. I’m shivering and I smell like the Thames, and any urge I had to die by drowning is utterly gone.</p>
<p>By all rights the man should be even worse off, but then, he didn’t have to fight his mentor after staying up nights to snog his mortal enemy. So maybe it makes sense that he’s alert and watching me through bright blue eyes.</p>
<p>“Hello, Simon,” he says. He’s an older bloke, white-haired and broad-shouldered, a little taller than me. He has these crinkly lines around his eyes, like he smiles a lot, but he’s not smiling now.</p>
<p>“<em>What</em> were you <em>thinking?”</em> I spit. (I literally spit; frigid Thames water comes out as soon as I open my mouth.)</p>
<p>“I jumped in to save you,” he says matter-of-factly.</p>
<p>“<em>You</em> saved <em>me?</em> Did you hit your head on the way down?”</p>
<p>“Well, you were going to jump, weren’t you?”</p>
<p>“But I didn’t! And you <em>did!”</em></p>
<p>“Right. So I saved you.”</p>
<p>He’s watching me knowingly, and it’s pissing me off. “So, should I throw you back in, then?”</p>
<p>“You’d only have to jump in again, and where would that get us?”</p>
<p>I make an inarticulate noise (<em>use your words, Snow)</em> and begin the complicated business of pulling myself upright. My lips are stiff with cold anyway, and talking isn’t getting me anywhere.</p>
<p>He stands—he doesn’t look half frozen enough to have just crawled out of the Thames—and extends his hand to me.</p>
<p>“Come on, Simon,” he says.</p>
<p>“Wait. How do you know my name?” I squint at him suspiciously. “Are you a magician?”</p>
<p>“In a manner of speaking.”</p>
<p>Well, that’s helpful.</p>
<p>“Let’s get somewhere warm,” he suggests. I eye him suspiciously, wondering if he’s a pervert or a goblin agent or just a garden-variety serial killer, but I decide that all of those would have had about a hundred more straightforward ways to attack me than throwing themselves into the Thames.</p>
<p>We end up in the McDonald’s across the street from St. Paul’s Cathedral, which is only possible because it’s almost midnight on a snowy Christmas and no one is on the streets to notice my wings and tail.</p>
<p>The only person in the place is the young woman behind the counter. She has twilight-colored hair that fades from blue to purple and piercings through her eyebrow and nose. She’s fiddling with her phone, but she stands up straight when we come in. Her eyes widen.</p>
<p>“Is that a <em>Krampus </em>costume?” she breathes.</p>
<p>“What? No. Krampus doesn’t have wings.” (Krampus is real, but he doesn’t ever leave Austria.)</p>
<p>“No, that’s balrogs,” she says, then frowns. “Why are you <em>wet?”</em></p>
<p>“Polar Bear Club,” the man says. And, when she frowns, “You know—swimming in the winter.”</p>
<p>“On Christmas?”</p>
<p>“That’s right!” I say heartily. “Happy Christmas.”</p>
<p>“Jewish.” She shrugs. “It’s time-and-a-half.” She looks down at her phone again.</p>
<p>“Say, you wouldn’t happen to have a towel?” the man asks.</p>
<p>She eyes us as if maybe the Polar Bear Club should have been better prepared, but then goes to rummage in the back. The stranger ends up drying off with a greasy handtowel and an old apron. I get a second apron and an old jumper that someone left behind. The stranger orders two Big Macs, Chicken McNuggets, fries, and two huge coffees. I pat myself down, but of course there’s no wallet in my magicked grey suit.</p>
<p>“Fuck.”</p>
<p>“Language,” the man says mildly, and sits down across from me. (<em>Just a mysterious old man and a suicidal devil, going to Maccy’s for Christmas.</em>) “My treat.” He gestures at the food; I hesitate for a moment, then shrug and tear in.</p>
<p>“So who <em>are</em> you?” I mean to sound intimidating, but I’m not sure it comes across with my mouth full of all-beef patty.</p>
<p>“Name’s Clarence,” he says. “And I’m here to help you.”</p>
<p>I snort. “No offence, but I’ve never even met you. Why would you help me?”</p>
<p>“Because you need it.”</p>
<p>I look down. It’s hard to argue with that.</p>
<p>“I’m a friend,” he says. He rummages in his coat for a moment (he’s wearing an old-timey tweed suit with a long beige trench coat over it; it looks too light for the snow, but it does have deep pockets). He eventually brings out a battered, waterlogged paperback. It drips water onto the plastic tabletop when he holds it up.</p>
<p>“Damn.” He ruffles the pages, trying to separate the stuck-together leaves. When he sets it on the table I see that it’s an ancient-looking copy of the <em>Fellowship of the Ring</em>, beige with red lettering on the front.</p>
<p>“Have you read it?” he says, using his borrowed apron to mop at the cover.</p>
<p>“Saw the movies.” (The Mage thought they were an important source of pop-cultural slang.)</p>
<p>“You should read them. Frodo didn’t ask to be chosen either, but in the end he did what he had to.”</p>
<p>“Frodo <em>saved</em> his world,” I say. It comes out unexpectedly bitter. “I almost destroyed mine.”</p>
<p>“Frodo almost failed—many times.”</p>
<p>“But he didn’t. And I <em>did</em>. By the time I even found out it was already too late. I’d already done it.”</p>
<p>“What happened, Simon?” he asks gently.</p>
<p>“I—“ I take a deep shuddering breath. “I was the Humdrum. I mean, I wasn’t, not exactly—it’s more that I created him. He was the holes I left behind.” I close my eyes. “I was too much. I was ripping holes in the magickal atmosphere.</p>
<p>“And I…I killed the Mage.” My voice is shaking. “I just went to talk to him. But he killed Ebb—and I think he was trying to take my magic. I didn’t mean to, but Penny cast a spell, and then I said ‘Stop hurting me!’ And then he was dead.”</p>
<p>The rest of it comes out in a rush. It’s somehow easier to tell it to a stranger. He listens, those blue eyes fixed on me, nodding occasionally and making the appropriate noises. By the time I’m done my voice has stopped shaking and the food has been reduced to crumbs.</p>
<p>“And the worst part is,” I say, “I wish I could ask him what to do next. But I can’t, because I killed him. And also I think he was evil. But I still wish he was here.”</p>
<p>“He was your father,” Clarence says gently.</p>
<p>“Yeah! I mean, no, not really—I’m an orphan. He wasn’t my anything. But sometimes I felt like he was.”</p>
<p>I put my face in my hands, scrubbing at my hair. It’s started to dry, and I can tell the curls are going everywhere.</p>
<p>“I wish—” I say, then stop. “Baz always said the World of Mages deserved better than me, and he was <em>right. </em>He and Penny would have been better off without me. Agatha too. You know how many times she almost died?” I scrub viciously at my scalp. It hurts, and it feels good. “I fucked up everything. I <em>always</em> fuck up everything. If I’d never been born, the whole World of Mages would be better off.”</p>
<p>“What did you say?” Clarence is looking at me intently, his blue eyes unnerving.</p>
<p>I raise my head defiantly, staring him in the eye. “I said I wish I’d never been born.”</p>
<p>Clarence looks up at the ceiling, where fans hang motionless, waiting for summer. “Is this the way?” he says. He sounds like he’s talking to himself. He nods. “Yes.”</p>
<p>Then he looks back at me and snaps his fingers. “<strong>As you wish.</strong>”</p>
<p>For a moment it’s as if a kind of ripple passes through me—as if the whole world blinked simultaneously. Then it’s gone, and I’m shaking myself like a dog, trying to rid myself of the sudden chill.</p>
<p>“What was that?” I say. “Was that a spell?”</p>
<p>Clarence just looks at me. “You got your wish,” he says. “You’ve never been born.”</p>
<p>I look down at myself. It sounded like a spell, but I don’t feel any different, and it looks like I’m all still here. (Body: check. Wings and tail: check. Endless talent for disaster: definite check.)</p>
<p>I stand. I don’t know why I’ve wasted so much time talking to the barmy old codger.</p>
<p>“Thanks for the food,” I say, and head for the door.</p>
<p>But once outside, I hesitate. Problem is, I’m not sure where to go next. (Not back into the Thames. Brrr.)</p>
<p>I shake my head, as if it might jostle my brains loose, and jump up and down a bit in the snow to warm myself.</p>
<p>But in the end, I don’t know where else to go but Watford. (It’s always Watford, for me.) Maybe I can at least take the fall for Baz and Penny. I can try to get that one thing right.</p>
<p>And then the Coven will lock me away where I can’t hurt anyone else.</p>
<p>I spread my wings and leap into the icy night air, flying for Watford.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>By the time I reach Watford the sun is peeping over the horizon and flushing the snowy hills pink. I’ve been awake for almost 24 hours and I’m so exhausted that everything looks subtly wrong. I hope the Coven will at least let me sleep before they throw me in a tower.</p>
<p>I circle around to the great gates—the gates with their in-retrospect-fucking-laughable inscription, the gates that have been permanently closed since the Mage took over. I wonder if I’m going to have to stand outside and yell for someone to let me in.</p>
<p>But the gates are gaping open, the right side hanging half off its hinges.</p>
<p>The Coven must have been really angry. I shudder a little. I hope Penny and Baz are all right.</p>
<p>I alight outside the gates and sort of sidle towards them. I’m not sure where exactly the barriers will kick in.</p>
<p>But I don’t feel anything—I mean, I <em>wouldn’t</em>, without any magic, but nothing stops me. I walk all the way through the gaping gates and onto the Great Lawn beyond. It isn’t until I turn to look behind me that I see that mine are the only set of footsteps in the snow. Shouldn’t the Mage’s Range Rover and the Coven’s cars have left tracks? But that makes me think of the Mage, and my mind shies away. Instead I leap into the air again. I feel cleaner, somehow, when I’m flying, as if I left all my ugly thoughts behind on the ground.</p>
<p>The drawbridge is down, and there are three merwolves sprawled across its length. As my shadow touches them they turn and snarl at me, showing their teeth. There are more in the water beyond; the morning sun glints off their eyes as their heads turn to follow me. That’s wrong too. They’re not usually so bold.</p>
<p>There are no cars in the courtyard. No footprints. No voices or people. My mind registers that as wrong, but I don’t slow.</p>
<p>And then I pull up short, my wings fanning out so wide that I almost tumble head over heels in the air.</p>
<p>All the windows in the White Chapel are whole.</p>
<p>I circle the tower, my mouth hanging open. I can’t get in that way unless I want to break the windows again. I land and stumble my way in on foot instead.</p>
<p>Inside everything is dusty and still. There’s no sign of a battle. No sign of <em>people</em>. I pass the altar, find the trapdoor in the ceiling, flutter up to the room above.</p>
<p>And there I stop short, turning in a slow circle.</p>
<p>The dawn light is starting to come in through the unbroken stained glass, lighting all the corners with shards of coloured light. I can see clearly into all the corners.</p>
<p>And…there’s nothing.</p>
<p>No broken glass. No dead birds. No Ebb or the Mage. No <em>blood. </em></p>
<p>No Penny. No Baz.</p>
<p>Instead there’s a thick layer of dust over everything, so thick that it looks like no one has been here for years.</p>
<p>My hands are in my hair, pulling at the roots. Am I crazy? (I feel like I’m crazy.)</p>
<p>Okay. The Coven must have been here already. I’m not sure why they put all the dust back when they cleaned up, or how they fixed the stained glass so quickly, but there are loads of spells I don’t know.</p>
<p>Where would they have gone? Our room, maybe, looking for me. And at least while I’m there I can change my clothes (I’m not sure what to do about the wings and tail, but I’ll figure it out) and get my bag of leprechaun gold. Maybe Baz will have left a note (although he’s not the note-leaving type, really, unless it’s one in Agatha’s handwriting leading me into some kind of trap).</p>
<p>I race back out of the Chapel and fly for Mummers House. I don’t have the patience to go through the door and climb the stairs. Instead I jimmy the lock on the casements—I figured that out when I was twelve and the Mage started sending me on missions—and scramble inside. The wings give me a bit of trouble, but eventually I get them through the window and tumble through onto the floor.</p>
<p>I scramble upright, prepared to explain myself.</p>
<p>But there’s no one here.</p>
<p>There’s <em>nothing</em> here.</p>
<p>Baz’s bed is right where it should be, but it’s stripped down to the slats; there isn’t even a mattress. And there’s nothing at all where my bed should be. My whole side of the room is empty.</p>
<p>I open all the drawers of Baz’s wardrobe, feverishly, and close them again: empty. His desk is empty too. Not even a book—and he has so many books he can’t even take them all home with him for the holidays. (He has to leave some here for the <em>summer.) </em></p>
<p>I kick open the closet door: one solitary hanger swinging where Baz’s row of identical white shirts should be.</p>
<p>None of Baz’s bottles and potions are in the en suite—only a cockroach that skitters away from the light and takes refuge under the washstand.</p>
<p>And I think it’s this that convinces me at last: the smell. The lack of smell. It smells musty and old. Not a hint of cedar or bergamot. We might have been gone a century, not a few days. We might never have been here at all.</p>
<p>I shove the bathroom door closed, sink to the floor, and put my head on my knees, hugging my legs like a child.</p>
<p>Think, Simon. <em>Think.</em></p>
<p>And then it comes to me. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner. (Baz says I’m slow, but I’m <em>not</em>—I’m just <em>tired</em>. So tired.)</p>
<p>The man, back in the McDonald’s. He cast some sort of spell. <em>As you wish.</em> He said I’d never been born. I don’t know what that means, exactly. There’s no spell that can just…cancel someone out.</p>
<p>But he did <em>something</em>.</p>
<p>I can’t believe I let him go. I can’t believe I just flew away and left him. One more mistake to add to the pile.</p>
<p>I don’t know where to go. What to do next. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt so alone. (Not even that time a lookinghast trapped me in a maze of mirrors and I could only see my own reflection.) Not even in the homes, over the summer. At least there were people there, even if they mostly stayed away from me. At least I knew my friends were out there.</p>
<p>I wish I knew what to do. Penny usually helps with this part.</p>
<p>Penny.</p>
<p>I’ll go back to Penny’s. Her mother is a powerful magician and member of the Coven. They’ll help me figure it out. (Or they’ll throw me in a tower—which honestly is beginning to sound pretty restful.)</p>
<p>I climb back out through the window and take to the air again. My wings are laboring now. I don’t know how exactly I magicked them up, but clearly they’re not used to flying between Watford and London multiple times in a night. I think I’ve been getting by on adrenaline so far, but now it’s beginning to wear off and cold fear is setting in. (Not to mention the cold itself.) I just want to get to Penny’s and <em>fix</em> this.</p>
<p>But I stop dead when I reach the Weeping Tower.</p>
<p>The whole tower is charred black.</p>
<p>I circle it, staring. It looks half-melted, like a candle that’s burned down. The conical roof at the top is fallen in, and a few of the windows have collapsed without their wooden frames. The vines that used to climb the walls are nothing but sooty traceries on the stone.</p>
<p>It must have been an inferno. But there’s not a trace of the fire left, not even embers; the whole is dusted with snow. It might have happened months or even years ago. That must be why I didn’t notice until I got close.</p>
<p>Just past it is Ebb’s barn, nestled under the walls. My heart gives a great leap as I catch sight of it. There are lights on inside, and a thread of smoke winds up into the sky.</p>
<p>Clarence’s spell changed what happened in the White Chapel. It <em>melted</em> the Weeping Tower. What if it changed other things as well?</p>
<p>What if…?</p>
<p>I spiral down and land in the shadow of the wall, a little distance from the door. It seems disrespectful, somehow, to land right on her doorstep. I take two steps towards the door.</p>
<p>Then something tackles me hard from behind, right between the wings.</p>
<p>I go sprawling into the snow with the attacker on top of me. I try to roll but the wings get in the way, and my tired muscles don’t want to answer me. I end up lying half on my back, half on my side in the snow with the wings sprawled out to one side and the attacker on top of me. There’s a cold bar across my throat and the face hovering over me is full of teeth.</p>
<p>“What are you?” the attacker snarls.</p>
<p>There’s a blaze of pain up my back where my wings are twisted, and I wish I could just go to sleep here in the snow. I’m so muddled that at first I think it’s Ebb who’s attacked me: sharp cheekbones, blond hair, pale blue eyes. Then I realize the truth.</p>
<p>“Nico? <em>Nicodemus?”</em></p>
<p>He sits back a bit, but he’s still holding the bar across my throat. His fangs are out and his eyes are suspicious.</p>
<p>“How do you know my name? What are you doing here?”</p>
<p>“I’m a student! I go to school here!”</p>
<p>“No, you aren’t. No one goes to school here. Not since the Weeping Tower.”</p>
<p>
  <em>“What?”</em>
</p>
<p>“You can’t be a student. So who are you?”</p>
<p>“Simon Snow,” I say. “We’ve <em>met</em>. Don’t you remember? Baz and I came to the vampire bar to talk to you—“</p>
<p>“Baz?”</p>
<p>“<em>Basilton</em>. Grimm-Pitch?”</p>
<p>He laughs shortly. “Not bloody likely. I’d remember that.”</p>
<p>“You’ve never heard my name? Simon Snow? The Mage’s Heir?” His eyebrows raise at the mention of the Mage, but he doesn’t say anything. “The Chosen One?”</p>
<p>“Never heard of you. But you certainly have a high opinion of yourself.”</p>
<p>I close my eyes, briefly. They feel caked and fogged with exhaustion. “Look—there was a magician, I think he cast some kind of spell that…changed things. I promise I’m not here to hurt you. I just want to make things right. Will you let me up?”</p>
<p>He looks down at me consideringly. “I’m only doing this because you don’t look like you could hurt a fly right now.” He takes the bar away from my throat and steps back, off of me. Now that I can see I realize it’s a curved wooden shepherd’s staff.</p>
<p>“Ebb’s staff!”</p>
<p>“How do you know my sister?” he says, suspicious again.</p>
<p>“Ebb is…” I look down. “A friend. She was a friend. I was looking for her.”</p>
<p>“Ebeneza is dead. Has been for months.”</p>
<p>I should have been expecting it; had been expecting it, really. But it still hits me like a blow to the chest. All the breath goes out of me and I sag back down into the snow.</p>
<p>“Come on.” Nico is standing above me, offering his hand. “Let’s go inside.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I end up sitting in one of the chairs in the little sitting room in the back of the barn. Nicodemus makes me tea. He sits on the arm of one of Ebb’s shabby chairs and takes sips out of a flask, even though it’s definitely too early to drink…whatever that is. (I just hope it’s not blood.)</p>
<p>Something has been niggling at my attention, and now that we’re sitting across from each other I realize what it is.</p>
<p>“You still have your teeth,” I blurt.</p>
<p>“What do you know about my teeth?”</p>
<p>“Where I’m from, they snapped your wand and pulled out your teeth after you crossed over. They struck you from the Book. Why didn’t they here?”</p>
<p>Nico’s hand goes to his mouth. “Ebeneza,” he says. “They snapped my wand and struck me from the Book, right enough, but she managed to smuggle me out and hide me before they did the rest. I don’t think she would have managed, but dear Mistress Pitch was distracted by politics—the Mage started making trouble that summer.” He shrugs. “No one knew until much later, but turns out he had a wife—or something—stashed away. When she died he went a little crazy.” He snorts. “Crazier.”</p>
<p>“The <em>Mage?</em> Had a <em>wife?”</em> I’m reeling, trying to take this in.</p>
<p>“Yeah—the Salisbury girl. Lucy. He was doing some sort of magickal experiments on her, if the stories are right. While she was <em>pregnant</em>, if you believe it. She and the sprog both died.” He shakes his head. “I wish Ebeneza’d known sooner. Might’ve made a difference.”</p>
<p>“What…what happened to her?”</p>
<p>“Oh no, I’m going to need to know more about you before I tell you that.” His eyes gleam. This Nico seems calmer—less slimy, more assured. I guess this one hasn’t had to struggle on the fringes of vampire society to survive.</p>
<p>“I told you—I’m a student here. Or I was, before. I knew your sister. She used to—take care of me. Then everything went wrong, and I met a strange man, and he cast a spell, and here I am.”</p>
<p>“What was the spell?”</p>
<p>“I said I wished I’d never been born, and he said <em>as you wish. </em>And now everything is different.”</p>
<p>“You never being born makes that big a difference?”</p>
<p>I sigh. “I was the Greatest Mage,” I say.</p>
<p>“Were you really, now?” He eyes me, half skeptically and half as if he’s considering auctioning me off to the highest bidder. (I guess this Nico’s not <em>that</em> different.)</p>
<p>“Or at least the Mage thought so.” Until he didn’t anymore.</p>
<p>“The Mage.” He bares his teeth. His fangs are tucked away, but it looks like they’re considering a reappearance. “You his creature? I’m no friend of the Mage. Not since Ebb.”</p>
<p>I hesitate. As recently as yesterday I would have said I was the Mage’s man through and through. I came to Watford to tell him the truth. I almost gave him my magic.</p>
<p>But that was <em>before</em>.</p>
<p>“No. In my world—“ I hesitate. “I killed him.”</p>
<p>“Good.” He grins fiercely.</p>
<p>“Did he—“</p>
<p>“Yeah.” The light glints off his fangs. “Killed my sister. She found out he was experimenting on students. She was sick at heart, that he’d been doing it under her nose and she didn’t know. I tried to stop her, but she went after him when I was out hunting. I woulda killed him myself, after that, if the Pitch brat hadn’t gotten to him first.”</p>
<p>
  <em>“What?”</em>
</p>
<p>He nods. “Young Master Pitch killed him, right over there.” He nods his head over towards the Weeping Tower. “Revenge, I guess.”</p>
<p>“Revenge?”</p>
<p>“For his mother.”</p>
<p>“His mother?”</p>
<p>“Are you just going to repeat everything I say? The Mage hired the vampires that killed his mother, fifteen years ago.”</p>
<p>“The Mage.” I sink into the chair. Of course. The <em>Mage</em> killed Baz’s mother.</p>
<p>Baz was right. It was always the Mage.</p>
<p><em>Everything</em> was the Mage.</p>
<p>Nicodemus is going on. “Apparently Natasha Pitch’s ghost came back through the Veil to tell him herself.”</p>
<p>“What? He wasn’t kidnapped?”</p>
<p>Nicodemus laughs shortly. “Not even the Mage would dare to kidnap <em>him</em>. He was always dark, and the darling of the Old Families too—the fucking Heir of Pitch.</p>
<p>“And that was before we knew the half of it. Turns out the ones who got his mother Turned him too. Can you imagine? The great-grandson of Old Man Pitch, a vampire? But of course no one can say anything.” He spits. “Cowards, the whole lot of ‘em.”</p>
<p>I’m glad that everyone knows is Baz is a vampire here. (He shouldn’t have to hide that part of himself.) But I’m still stuck on the Weeping Tower.</p>
<p>“<em>Baz</em> burned the Tower?”</p>
<p>“The story is they dueled, and the Pitch brat killed him in cold blood.”</p>
<p>“He wouldn’t do that.” I’m sure of it. Baz is a vampire, but he isn’t a killer. (I know that, now.) There must be more to it, some part of the story Nicodemus doesn’t know.</p>
<p>“What do you know about Tyrannus Pitch?”</p>
<p>“He’s my—“ I say, and stop short. I can’t say <em>boyfriend</em>. I’m not up to explaining that to Nicodemus Petty, and besides, I’m not even sure it’s true anymore. “My roommate.”</p>
<p>Nicodemus laughs shortly. “Lucky you.” He nods at the wings and tail. “If you don’t mind me asking—what are you? Some kind of dragon hybrid?”</p>
<p>“I told you—I’m a magician. Or I was.”</p>
<p>“So where do the wings and tail come in?”</p>
<p>“I did it with magic. My own magic. I told you, I was the Greatest Mage.”</p>
<p>Nicodemus smirks. “Things really <em>must</em> be different where you’re from.”</p>
<p>In my lap, my hands slowly clench and reopen. He’s right to doubt. I’m not the Greatest Mage anymore—if I ever was. Even the <em>Mage</em> said I was never the Chosen One.</p>
<p>All those years, chasing after something that was never mine. And now I’ve lost even that.</p>
<p>I’m not sure <em>what</em> I am.</p>
<p>“If you’re a magician, where’s your instrument?”</p>
<p>“I—lost it. My magic. I gave it away.”</p>
<p>I expect him to ask more questions, but instead he just nods, looking into the fire. “I lost mine with the Change,” he says. “Still think about it, sometimes.”</p>
<p>“In my—where I come from, you live in London. What are you doing here? How did you even get in?”</p>
<p>“Came back when things got bad—lived in the Wavering Wood for a while. Ebeneza was here and I wanted to protect her.” His mouth twists, and I watch his hands turning the staff around and around in his lap. “You can see how that worked out. Then the Weeping Tower burned and the Mage was dead and everyone was at each others’ throats. The governors closed Watford—said it was temporary, but it just never opened again, not with everyone saying war was coming. I don’t know if it was too much for the wards or if Watford just wasn’t anyone’s home anymore. Anyway, I moved in. I think it’s what she would have wanted.”</p>
<p>I bow my head. I think of Ebb, leading the goats across the drawbridge to the hills. Ebb, sacrificing herself in the White Chapel. “It was,” I agree.</p>
<p>Then I stand. “Thanks for the tea, but I have to get to London.”</p>
<p>Nicodemus laughs at me. “You don’t look like you could get to the next town, wings and all. Come on, I’ll make up a bed for you. If Ebeneza was your friend, I can do that much.”</p>
<p>I shift from foot to foot. I’m so tired, and I so desperately want to sleep and not have to think of…all this…for a time.</p>
<p>But… “No biting,” I say.</p>
<p>Nicodemus curls his lip. “I don’t bite Ebb’s friends. Anyway, you look cold-blooded.”</p>
<p>He makes me a pile of blankets in the corner of the sitting room, then disappears. I’m not sure if he’s gone to bed or to hunt; I try not to think about it.</p>
<p>I expect to fall asleep instantly. I’m knackered and I don’t think I can fit one more thing in my brain.</p>
<p>But instead I lie awake, staring at the ceiling. This isn’t the first time I’ve slept here. Ebb let me camp out here, once or twice, during birthing season. I don’t know how long she’s been gone, in this world, but her barn still smells the same—some indefinable combination of goat and Murphy’s oil soap and a sweet piney scent that says <em>outdoors</em> to me.</p>
<p>It smells like Ebb.</p>
<p>It smells like home.</p>
<p>I desperately want the blankness of sleep. I want to close my eyes and wake up back in my bed at Watford—for the last few days not to have happened.</p>
<p>Except Baz. I can’t regret that—regret <em>him.</em></p>
<p>I wonder where he is right now. I wonder if he’s thinking of me.</p>
<p>I wonder if that other world even still exists, or if Clarence somehow…overwrote it, like a file on a computer. If all the bits of that world have been rearranged into this world instead.</p>
<p>And who’s to say it’s not better? Ebb is still dead, but so is the Mage. Baz got his revenge just fine without me (even if I still think Nicodemus doesn’t know the whole story.)</p>
<p>I roll over, restlessly. The Mage taught me so much. I looked up to him. (Most of the time I wanted to <em>be</em> him.) But I think in the end he would have killed me. Like he killed Ebb. Like he killed his wife. (I wonder if she existed in my world, too. I wonder what happened to her.)</p>
<p>No. I can’t think about the Mage. I’m not ready to. (Maybe I’ll never be ready.) The important thing is, he’s gone. In both worlds.</p>
<p>And this world has never had the Humdrum. It can’t, because the Humdrum was me.</p>
<p>Maybe the world is a better place without me in it.</p>
<p>It does give me a pang to think of Watford shut down and abandoned, the Weeping Tower sitting like a scar in the middle of it. I think of the Simon of a few months ago, afraid to take out his list of favourite things until he got close enough to know the school wouldn’t vanish like a mirage.</p>
<p>The magic children of this world won’t have sour cherry scones and purple-and-green uniforms and welcome picnics out on the Great Lawn. Or maybe they will again. Watford could still reopen. Rebuild.</p>
<p>And whatever happens, the kids of this world will still have magic. It’s what they <em>are</em>.</p>
<p>Only I don’t have magic anymore. Me and Nico.</p>
<p>We’re both leftovers, in our way: me in the wrong world, without any family in either one. Nicodemus without his twin, the slender thread binding him to the magickal world snapped.</p>
<p>In the darkness, with the dying fire muttering across the room, I whisper the words of the incantation to myself: <em>In justice. In courage. In defence of the weak. In the face of the mighty. Through magic and wisdom and good.</em></p>
<p>I’d like to hold the Sword of Mages again. There’s nothing here for me to fight, but I’d like to fall asleep with it beside me, one familiar thing in this strange world.</p>
<p>I whisper the words again and again, trying out different rhythms and emphases, all the tricks of elocution that Miss Possibelf taught me.</p>
<p>But nothing happens. The Sword doesn’t come.</p>
<p>And eventually I fall asleep, my hand clenched around empty air.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I sleep that whole day and through the night. Every so often I swim back up to wakefulness to see Nicodemus building up the fire; once I hear the bleat of a goat.</p>
<p>When I wake up it’s morning and Nicodemus is heating water in a kettle over the stove.</p>
<p>“Nightmares?” he says. “I heard you yelling.”</p>
<p>“I don’t remember,” I say, and I’m grateful to find that it’s true. I feel…better this morning, as if the events of the past few days are a little farther away.</p>
<p>Nicodemus gives me instant porridge he cooks with water from the kettle and some stale biscuits. (Ebb use to give me goats-milk cheese and yoghurt, but Nicodemus doesn’t look the type to milk a goat, let alone make anything from it. I don’t want to think about what he’s been surviving on.)</p>
<p>Nicodemus doesn’t have much in the way of spare clothes, but he gives me a pair of old jeans, a grotty Stone Roses T-shirt and one of Ebb’s faded jumpers to wear under an old barn coat. At the last minute he digs up a pair of leather work gloves and an old pair of work boots (“You can’t have my Docs,” he says.)</p>
<p>Then we walk out to the front of the barn. There are a few goats around, nosing at the snow; they used to come running when Ebb came outside, but they only glance warily at Nicodemus and go back to their business.</p>
<p>We stand there awkwardly. Then, abruptly, Nicodemus shoves Ebb’s staff at me.</p>
<p>“Here,” he says. “I think she would’ve wanted you to have it. You remind me of one of her goats, somehow.”</p>
<p>Dazed, I take it, feeling the smooth wood grain under my palms.</p>
<p>“But—her magickal instrument—I can’t—“</p>
<p>“I can’t either,” he says gruffly. “And I’m sick of looking at it.”</p>
<p>He finds a leather strap so I can wear the staff over my shoulder; he helps me work the strap over one wing and adjust the fit.</p>
<p>Then we stand there again. “Well, get on, now,” he says.</p>
<p>I flap my wings experimentally. A little soreness in the joints, but they feel rested. They’ll get me to London. The wind from my wings blows the blond hair back from his forehead, and for a moment he looks even more like his sister.</p>
<p>Then I beat my wings and spiral upwards. I look back, once. Nico doesn’t wave, just turns abruptly and goes back inside.</p>
<p>Then I’m crossing the wall and over the hills beyond. I set my face towards the city, Watford growing smaller and smaller behind me.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>After the rest my wings feel good, as if they’re eager to take to the sky. And it’s easy not to think while I’m flying. The air whips past my head; I let it take my thoughts away with it.</p>
<p>London is easy to find—just follow the motorways—but Hounslow is a bit harder. (I think the magic was helping, last time.) I find Penny’s house at last, even though all the houses in Hounslow look the same from above. There are enough people around that I have to perch on her roof, like a gargoyle, until the street is clear and I can swoop down to her doorstep.</p>
<p>There’s a long delay before anyone opens the door. I shuffle my feet and hunch my wings into the corner and hope that no one comes by. (If they do, I guess I’ll tell them it’s a Krampus costume.)</p>
<p>But at last I hear the bolt sliding. And it’s Penny herself who opens the door.</p>
<p>I’m not sure I’ve ever been so glad to see her—even coming back to Watford after last summer.</p>
<p>“Penny! Thank magic!” I say, edging forward into the shadow of the doorway.</p>
<p>She gives a little shriek and hurriedly steps back, holding her ring finger up between us.</p>
<p>“Stay back! I’m armed!” she says. Her hand is shaking a bit, which isn’t like her—Penny isn’t afraid of anything.</p>
<p>With a sinking feeling I realize that Clarence’s spell—whatever it was—has clearly affected Penny. Which I should have expected, really. But I’d been hoping…well, I’d been hoping.</p>
<p>“Penny! I need your help!” I say. She shrinks back.</p>
<p>“How do you know my name?” she says, her voice quavering. Fuck, I should have said something more reassuring. I’m shit at reassuring, though.</p>
<p>“Listen, Pen, I know this is hard to believe, but I’m your best friend.”</p>
<p>“I don’t have a best friend.”</p>
<p>“Yes, you do, it’s just—“ I sigh. “I’m from a parallel universe.”</p>
<p>“Parallel universe?” she says, and I can practically see her ears prick. It’s good to know that—in any universe—Penny is still Penny.</p>
<p>“Yeah—it’s a long story. Can I come in? I promise not to hurt you.”</p>
<p>“That’s exactly what a dark creature would say. What are you, anyway?”</p>
<p>“I’m human.”</p>
<p>“Then what are you doing with a wings and tail?”</p>
<p>“It’s magic, Penny. Like a curse.”</p>
<p>“A curse?” she says, her eyes gleaming behind the spectacles.</p>
<p>I hear the sound of voices. There are two women coming down the street, walking a dog. Any minute they’ll turn towards me and see the wings.</p>
<p>“My name is Simon Snow,” I say, and watch her closely. But her face doesn’t change at all. “Please, Penny, would you let me in?”</p>
<p>She follows my gaze to the people. Her eyes narrow.</p>
<p>“How do I know what you’re saying is true?”</p>
<p>“Your name is Penelope Bunce,” I say. “Your father is English, your mother is Indian—well, her grandparents were.”</p>
<p>The women are coming closer. “You could have guessed that from looking at me,” she says.</p>
<p>“You have four siblings: Premal, Pacey, Priya, and Pip.”</p>
<p>“Your research needs work,” she says. “I only have three siblings.”</p>
<p>My tail is lashing anxiously. I don’t know what to say when none of the last eight years actually happened. “You dyed your hair red by accident before your first year at Watford. You love books more than you like most people. You’re top of the class, always, unless Baz beats you. There’s no problem you think can’t be solved through more research. You’d stick your head in a griffin’s mouth if you thought you could learn something—I should know, I saw you do it! And you’re my best friend and—<em>please</em>, Penny, I literally don’t know what to do next if you won’t help me.”</p>
<p>She eyes me for a second. I don’t know what she’s looking for, or if she finds it. Then she opens the door wide and drops her ring hand. “Come in, I guess.”</p>
<p>Penny brings me to the kitchen and gets out the tea things; I guess that’s what you do when a winged creature who claims to be your best friend shows up at your door.</p>
<p>Penny’s house looks different—shabbier. I would think I was imagining it, except I was just here two days ago. (Well, two days and a universe away.) Her house has always been packed to the gills with books, magickal items, and all the stuff that comes with five kids. I was always worried about knocking things over, and that was before I had wings and a tail with a mind of its own.</p>
<p>This version of her house has less stuff, but also less…care, I guess. There’s a long strip of wallpaper pulling off one wall, and the floor hasn’t been swept. No water comes out of the tap until she opens the cabinet below it and kicks the pipe; it gives a kind of cough and water spurts out moodily.</p>
<p>“Where is everyone?” I say.</p>
<p>She gives me a suspicious look over her shoulder, but apparently decides to just go with it.</p>
<p>“Mum and Dad are at an emergency Coven meeting. Priya’s with a friend. Pacey is in boarding school in America—my parents thought he’d be safer there. And Premal—“ she grimaces. “We don’t talk about Premal.”</p>
<p>“What about Pip?”</p>
<p>She frowns as she puts the kettle on the stove. “I don’t recognize the name.”</p>
<p>“He’s your youngest brother in—where I come from.”</p>
<p>“Ugh, did my parents really do a <em>fifth</em> P name?” she says. “Wanton abuse.” She busies herself with the stove. “Priya’s the last,” she says. “I think my parents would have liked to have more, but—“ she sighs. “Well.”</p>
<p>“Well, what?”</p>
<p>“Well, money is tight,” she says. “My mum still has her job, of course, but my dad’s had trouble getting funding for his work. Not a lot of money in linguistics, at least not with—everything.”</p>
<p>Of course; in my world her dad studied the Humdrum. But this world doesn’t have a Humdrum.</p>
<p>I take another look at her. Closer up, Penny herself looks a bit shabby. Her hair is longer and even frizzier than usual, as if she hasn’t bothered to get it cut, and her glasses show definite signs of being repaired. She’s wearing a baggy old T-shirt over grotty pyjama bottoms. She looks kind of…greasy, like she doesn’t get out enough.</p>
<p>“Penny,” I say slowly, “are you all right?”</p>
<p>“What do you mean?” she says sharply, swinging around. “Why wouldn’t I be all right? I’m just the same as always.”</p>
<p><em>You’re not,</em> I think, but I don’t say it.</p>
<p>“Have you talked to anyone else since Watford closed?”</p>
<p>“Anyone who?”</p>
<p>“Anyone from school. I dunno. Rhys, Gareth. Trixie?”</p>
<p>“Ugh. As if I’d talk to <em>her.</em>” (One other thing that stays the same in any universe.)</p>
<p>“Well, what about Agatha?”</p>
<p>“Agatha?” she says, turning to stare at me incredulously. “Agatha <em>Wellbelove?”</em></p>
<p>“Well, yeah.”</p>
<p>She laughs. It has a sharp, brittle sound. “Not bloody likely. She’s half of what the Coven meeting is about.”</p>
<p>“Have you talked to Micah, even? You used to Skype with him almost every day.”</p>
<p>“Who’s Micah?” She plops my teacup down on the table, hard enough that I worry about the china. I pick it up, just so I have something to do with my hands. The warmth feels good against my skin; I’m not cold-blooded, no matter what Nicodemus says, and I’m half frozen from flying.</p>
<p>“Micah. We met him in fourth year?”</p>
<p>“<em>Oh. </em>The little American exchange student?”</p>
<p>“Yeah. In my world you’re dating.”</p>
<p>“Really?” she says, wrinkling her nose. “I dunno, I think he spent a lot of time playing video games. We never talked much. I don’t have time for dating anyway. My mother says—”</p>
<p>“—you should never have more people in your life than you could defend from a hungry rakshasa. I know.”</p>
<p>She’s staring at me, her cup halfway to her mouth. I think it’s the first time she’s believed me.</p>
<p>“You really are,” she says.</p>
<p>“Your best friend from a parallel universe? Yeah. I am.” I put down the teacup and rub my hand through my hair. What is going on here? What’s happened to <em>Penny?</em></p>
<p>“Penny. If you’re too busy to have friends, or a boyfriend…what have you been doing?”</p>
<p>“Research,” she says, taking a sip of tea.</p>
<p>“Research. Of course. What kind of research?”</p>
<p>She looks up, her eyes bright behind the glasses. “I,” she says, holding up one finger, “am going to find the fairies!”</p>
<p>I groan. She looks deflated. “What? What’s wrong with that?”</p>
<p>“It’s just—Penny, what does that have to do with anything?”</p>
<p>“What do you mean? It’s one of the most important questions in magic! Scholars have been debating it for a century!”</p>
<p>“But don’t you care about what’s going on with the Old Families? There’s a war coming!”</p>
<p>She sighs. “<em>Politics</em>. Everyone is always on about the war—you, my parents, <em>everyone</em>. We don’t need even more people thinking about it. I want to do something different—something that will change the world.”</p>
<p>“But—don’t you care about <em>Watford?”</em></p>
<p>She shrugs. “They had some good books,” she says. “But the people were mostly irritating. I’m not fussed.”</p>
<p>Suddenly I can see it, clear as day: this Penny at Watford. She goes to classes, comes back to her room, goes to the library. Without me to drag her out of her shell, she eats alone with a book. She avoids Trixie. Avoids everyone.</p>
<p>Of course she doesn’t miss it.</p>
<p>And who knows, maybe she’s better off this way. She’s definitely safer.</p>
<p>But she doesn’t seem <em>happier</em>. She seems like…a tree growing in a corner without any sun. A tree that’s had most of its branches cut off without even noticing.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” I say.</p>
<p>She stares at me. “Sorry for what?”</p>
<p>“I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”</p>
<p>She shrugs. “Why are you sorry? I’m fine. Everything is fine.”</p>
<p>But it isn’t.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>After tea Penny takes me up to the attic.</p>
<p>It’s disorienting. I remember this room as covered in maps, each marked out with neat circles with flags. But there are no maps (because there’s no Humdrum). One side of the room is her father’s office, all standing tables and thick books lining the walls. The other half is storage; there are cardboard boxes all piled haphazardly on each other, blocking the light from the tiny skylights. Dust stirs in the beams of light.</p>
<p>“So, we need to figure out what happened to you,” Penny says.</p>
<p>“Do you need a chalkboard?”</p>
<p>“Why would I need a chalkboard?”</p>
<p>“Y’know. For columns. <em>Everything we know</em> and <em>everything we still don’t</em>.”</p>
<p>She shakes her head. “I don’t know <em>what</em> my other self was thinking.”</p>
<p>“We’ve done this before, Pen. We went on quests and fought dark creatures and solved puzzles and—“</p>
<p>She shudders. “Sounds dangerous.”</p>
<p>“It <em>was</em>—terrifying and dangerous and you saved my life so many times—“</p>
<p>“Did I?”</p>
<p>“But it was also <em>brilliant</em>. Sometimes.” I think about the early years, when the Humdrum was mostly abstract, when it felt more like having magickal adventures and less like constantly courting death. Before I was so tired. Before anyone had died.</p>
<p>But this Penny is just looking at me skeptically. I sigh and go over to one of the tables.</p>
<p>I tell her the story of the past few days. It’s weird, describing to her things that her alter ego did and said, but it’s also strangely like having the old Penny back. She asks sharp, incisive questions, and before long she’s making notes and diagrams on a spare piece of paper. (I <em>knew</em> we’d get to the chalkboard—or its equivalent—eventually.)</p>
<p>I leave out what happened between me and Baz—I’m not ready to explain that to Penny, in any universe.</p>
<p>“So I think this Clarence—whoever he was—cast some sort of spell that changed things,” I conclude.</p>
<p>“But, Simon, there’s no spell that works like that.”</p>
<p>“I know, Pen, but it happened.”</p>
<p>“No, you don’t understand.” (Sometimes I wish she weren’t <em>quite</em> so much like the other Penny.) “There’s no spell that <em>could</em> do that.”</p>
<p>I shrug.</p>
<p>“It would have to be <em>huge</em>, to affect all of Britain—or at least all of the area around London. But it would have to go farther than that, since you said you grew up all over Britain.”</p>
<p>“I know.”</p>
<p>“Maybe he didn’t so much change your world as kick you over to an alternate timeline. There are lots of different multiverse theories, in both the scientific and magickal worlds. Bubble universes, daughter universes, parallel universes—“</p>
<p>I recognize the signs of Penny going into lecture mode. “I <em>know</em>, Penny. I’ve watched Doctor Who. More than you, probably. What I really need to know is, what do I do about <em>this</em> one?”</p>
<p>Penny pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Well, I guess that depends. What do you <em>want</em> to do?”</p>
<p>“I—what? What do you mean?”</p>
<p>“Well, I know it’s your home and all, but the other universe sounds pretty terrible. I mean, you were thinking about <em>killing</em> yourself! In that world your mentor killed your friend, and then <em>you</em> killed <em>him</em>—“</p>
<p>“You helped,” I say, feeling obscurely defensive.</p>
<p>She shrugs. “Either way, the Coven is probably going to put you on trial. Put <em>us</em> on trial. Honestly? It all sounds rubbish—all those missions and battles. You killed a <em>dragon</em>, Simon!”</p>
<p>“I helped save the other one.”</p>
<p>“You killed a <em>lot</em> of things, apparently. So, what I want to know is, why go back at all? You got what you wanted. You got out of that world without even having to die. Maybe Clarence was doing you a favour!”</p>
<p>“But—“ I say.</p>
<p>“I mean, you don’t still want to kill yourself, do you?”</p>
<p>“No,” I say. I’m sure about this, at least. I learned the answer to that question in the river.</p>
<p>“So, you did it! You got rid of the Humdrum and the Mage. You saved the world! I mean, it’s a bit of a twist that you had to save it from <em>yourself</em>, but still! You did it! Congratulations!”</p>
<p>She’s looking expectantly at me, her eyes shining like she’s cracked the whole thing, and I don’t know why I want to argue. She’s right; I know she’s right. So why do I feel so wrong? Maybe you always feel like that when you’re uprooted from your own timeline.</p>
<p>“But Baz—“ I start. I have no idea what I’m planning to say next.</p>
<p>She shudders. “<em>Baz</em>. So weird.”</p>
<p>“I know, I didn’t trust him at first either, but—“</p>
<p>But Penny is continuing along her own train of thought. “<em>Baz</em>. He’d kill anyone who called him that here.”</p>
<p>“Wait—he’d <em>what?”</em> Now that I think about it, I realize that Nicodemus didn’t seem to recognize the name either.</p>
<p>“At school he’d duel anyone who used that name. He goes by Tyrannus here.”</p>
<p>“Wait. <em>Penny</em>. Where is Baz now?”</p>
<p>She looks at me, surprised. “I thought you knew,” she says. “That’s what the war is about.”</p>
<p>Just then there’s a noise downstairs—a door banging open, voices.</p>
<p>“Mum and Dad,” Penny says, jumping up. I follow her down the stairs, pulling in my wings to fit in the narrow staircase.</p>
<p>I’ve forgotten that this Penny’s parents haven’t seen me like this. (Haven’t seen me at all.) As soon as her mum catches sight of me her wand is out and pointing at me. My wings flare out with the surprise, my tail lashing around my legs.</p>
<p>“Mum!” Penny says, putting herself in front of me. “Stop!”</p>
<p>“Penelope,” her mum says, with visible restraint. “What is <em>that?”</em></p>
<p>“It’s okay, Mum. He’s a friend.” She waves me forward. I coax my wings into folding against my back and step out of the shadow of the staircase, into the light.</p>
<p>Penny’s mum staggers back, putting her hand to her face. “Merlin.”</p>
<p>“It’s all right, Mum,” Penny soothes. “He looks scary, but—“</p>
<p>“No, it’s not that,” she says, still staring into my face. “I thought—you look like someone I knew.”</p>
<p>“I’m…sorry?” I try.</p>
<p>She shakes her head impatiently. “It’s nothing. Come on.”</p>
<p>In a few minutes we’re all crammed into their little kitchen. My wings are pressed up against one wall while Penny’s mum fusses with the kettle.</p>
<p>“Mum, Dad, this is Simon Snow,” Penny says. “He’s my best friend from a parallel universe.”</p>
<p>“Parallel universe?” Penny’s dad perks up. He looks tired, rubbing at the skin below his glasses. “Mitali and I are bound together in five dimensions.”</p>
<p>“Penny told me. The other Penny.” He’s still looking at me, so I add, “You’re bound together in my world too.”</p>
<p>“Lovely,” he says.</p>
<p>“What happened at the meeting?” I say. They look at me, and I think maybe I’m skipping a few social steps, but I don’t care. It’s still ringing in my ears: <em>Baz is what the war is about. </em></p>
<p>Penny’s mum sighs. She looks tired too. “The Old Families are planning something,” she says. “The Coven thinks it will be at Watford. The meeting was to decide what to do about it.”</p>
<p>“What did you decide?”</p>
<p>“There was no decision. The Coven was divided. Half the Coven wants to fight back. The other half wants to try to find a diplomatic solution.”</p>
<p>“Which side are you on?”</p>
<p>“Diplomacy,” says Penny’s dad. “It’s mostly the Mage’s Men leading the other side. Wellby—Dr. Wellbelove—has been working with us, but I think he’s getting frustrated.” He sighs. “I think he just wants his daughter back.”</p>
<p>“Wait—<em>what?”</em> I’m not following. “Where is Agatha?”</p>
<p>“You don’t know?” Penny says.</p>
<p>“Assume I don’t know anything,” I say through gritted teeth.</p>
<p>“She’s with Tyrannus Pitch,” Penny’s dad says.</p>
<p>“Wait—he <em>kidnapped</em> her?”</p>
<p>“I don’t think she had to be kidnapped,” says Penny’s mum. “After all, she’s his wife.”</p>
<p>I close my eyes. My hands are in my hair; I think it might start coming out. “Baz. And Agatha. Are <em>together?”</em></p>
<p>I don’t know what to think. Agatha broke up with me<em>.</em> (And I don’t exist.)</p>
<p>But Baz—Baz is <em>gay</em>. (<em>Completely</em>, he said. He was lying next to me, holding my hand. Kissing me.)</p>
<p>“But he’s—“</p>
<p>“A vampire?” Penny’s mum says. “We know. Everyone knows, after Watford. But I guess that doesn’t matter to Agatha. She’s always been very devoted.”</p>
<p>“Wellby is afraid he’ll Turn her,” Penny’s dad says.</p>
<p>This is too much. It’s all too much. “What does that have to do with the war?”</p>
<p>Penny’s dad sighs. “After Watford the Pitches started putting it about that Tyrannus is the Greatest Mage.”</p>
<p>“He’s powerful,” Mitali puts in, “although I don’t know that he’s <em>the</em> most powerful mage of all time.” She sniffs. “But apparently there’s some vampire legend about the Hybrid—a vampire who’s a magician as well—and Tyrannus ticks all the boxes. And the Weeping Tower went up like a paper lantern. He shouldn’t have been able to do that—or survive it, if he did. But he did.”</p>
<p>“They’re saying that the Mage was the greatest threat to magic,” Penny’s dad continues. “<em>And one will come to end us./And one will bring his fall.</em>”</p>
<p>“May the greatest power of powers reign,” I say blankly.</p>
<p>“Oh—you have that prophecy too?”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” I say. “But it was me. <em>I’m</em> the Greatest Mage.”</p>
<p>They’re looking at me like they don’t believe me—like they pity me. And who can blame them? I never believed it myself. Even the <em>Mage</em> didn’t believe it.</p>
<p>Penny’s dad hesitates a moment, then says, “They’re saying that the greatest power of powers is fire.”</p>
<p>“Well, they would,” says Mitali tartly. “They’re all obsessed with fire, the Grimms and Pitches both. If they’re not careful, they’ll burn up the whole World of Mages.”</p>
<p>“The Old Families are calling for elections,” says Penny’s dad. “They want to reclaim their seats on the Coven and have Tyrannus elected Mage. The Coven refused to hold an election with a vampire candidate, and now the Old Families are claiming that their refusal constitutes a soft coup and they’re obligated to defend magickal law.” He rubs at the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know how it will end.”</p>
<p>Something is rising in me. I’m not sure what it is. Two days ago I would have said it was magic. I’m half expecting the air around me to shimmer, all the edges of things blurred. I feel like I’m going to go off—and honestly, I wouldn’t mind it right now. It would be nice to explode. To lose myself in magic.</p>
<p>But my magic is gone.</p>
<p>“Where are they now?” I say. My voice sounds distant, even to myself.</p>
<p>“No one knows for sure,” Penny’s mum says.”But the Coven thinks they’re holed up in Pitch Manor.”</p>
<p>“Of course they are.” My wings are pressing against the walls, trying to unfurl. My voice is still far away. “I have to go.”</p>
<p>I stride for the front door. Ebb’s staff is resting against the wall next to it, still with its leather strap. I try to put it on, but my wings are extended and won’t go back in, and my tail is lashing as if in a hurricane.</p>
<p>Then Penny is there, easing the strap over my wings. They try to buffet her and she pushes them away. “Simon—“ she says. She sounds worried.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry, Pen,” I say. I barely know what I’m saying anymore, but it seems important. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here. You should have had a best friend.”</p>
<p>“Simon—“ she says again. But I’m throwing open the front door so hard that it bangs against the wall. I’m on the front porch, my wings reaching for the sky. There are people on the street; they’re staring, but I can’t make myself care.</p>
<p>I leap into the sky. I look down once as I spiral upwards. Penny is staring after me, her hand held to her mouth. Her parents are in the doorway behind her, staring up too.</p>
<p>I don’t look back again.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I don’t remember much of the flight to Pitch Manor. Maybe my wings remember the way, like a homing pigeon returning home.</p>
<p>It’s dark by the time I find the house. I remember the last time I was here—the forest on fire below me; the waves of heat battering me from below. Now the woods are dark and quiet and whole, branches sleeping under snow.</p>
<p>The front gates are closed. There are men guarding the gate, and more men patrolling the grounds. But they’re not looking for threats from above. I wait for a cloud to cross the moon and drift silently down in the darkness.</p>
<p>I remember where Baz’s room is; of course I do. There’s a balcony outside. I flutter down to it and crouch behind the railing. There’s a tight feeling in my stomach and I almost can’t make myself look through the window.</p>
<p>But the room is empty. There’s a fire in the fireplace, lighting the place where we lay together. The fist in my stomach clenches. But I make myself look, make myself remember the bubble of joy in my chest. Remember Baz’s face below mine, his eyes reflecting all the colours of the fire.</p>
<p>I try to jimmy the lock on the windows; when it won’t give, I force it. It feels good to break something.</p>
<p>The house is so big that I’m guessing no one will hear the noise. I was expecting there to be wards, but maybe they’ve never seen something like me before. (Maybe I don’t really exist here either.)</p>
<p>Baz’s bedroom smells like him, which I should have expected, but it’s unfair that even in an alternate universe he should smell like bergamot and cedar. I want to stop and breathe it in. I want to lie down and bury my nose in his pillows. I want to wake up on the floor next to him and find that the last two days never happened.</p>
<p>But instead I pad through the room to the hallway and close the door behind me. The hallway just smells like rich people, like wood and leather and, I don’t know, expensive furniture. I breathe out a slow breath and retrace my own ghostly footsteps downstairs.</p>
<p>The house is almost empty; no sign of the family or even the servants. The help must still be off for the holidays. It’s so quiet that I start to wonder if everyone’s gone. But then I get near the dining room and start hearing voices. I pause and close my eyes, listening.</p>
<p>Baz. And Agatha. And the clinking of silverware.</p>
<p>“Would you pass the lamb, Tyrannus?” says Agatha’s voice.</p>
<p>I edge forward, flattening my wings as much as I can. If I crouch behind one of the enormous chairs and peek out I can see them without them seeing me.</p>
<p>They’re sitting at one end of the ridiculously long dining table. They’re alone, Baz sitting at one end and Agatha sitting to his left. Agatha is facing towards me, but all I can see of Baz is his profile.</p>
<p>Agatha’s wearing a wine-coloured dress, and her hair is bound up on top of her head, only a few pale strands escaping. There’s a necklace set with some sort of red stones around her long neck; the light glints off them like blood. Her dark red lipstick and shadowy eye makeup make her eyes look darker. She sits there, perfectly composed, no doubt using the right fork and spoon for each course. She looks like she fits here.</p>
<p>She looks…grown up. There’s no sign of the Agatha who got pissed off when Penny teased her about liking pink. (There’s no sign of vampirism either, thank magic.)</p>
<p>But Baz. Oh.</p>
<p>He’s wearing that shimmery green suit, the candlelight rippling over it like fish scales, and for a second I miss him so badly I can hardly breathe, even though he’s right there.</p>
<p>I can’t tell anything about him from his profile. I can see the swell of the fangs in his cheeks if I look closely, but he’s wearing that posh mask where his face goes too still.</p>
<p>But when he takes a bite he turns his head away from Agatha—towards me. And I suck in a breath, because Baz is different too.</p>
<p>His cheeks are fuller, pinker. I can still see the grey around his eyes, shining like pearl in the candlelight, but there’s a warm blush to his skin that I’ve never seen before, not even when he drank that deer in the woods. His hair is slicked back and his widow’s peak is stark against his skin.</p>
<p>“Have you heard anything from the Families, Tyrannus?” Agatha asks. She raises her glass to her lips: red wine, the same colour as her dress.</p>
<p>“No, darling,” Baz says. Behind the chair, my hands clench into fists. “But I expect we’ll have word soon. Father is meeting with them now.”</p>
<p>“I hope my parents will be all right,” Agatha says. She’s turning her fork over and over in one pale hand.</p>
<p>“It’s only politics,” Baz says.</p>
<p>“Was it politics when you killed the Mage?”</p>
<p>The muscles in his jaws tighten. “He <em>killed</em> my <em>mother</em>, Agatha. You know that.”</p>
<p>“Well, I’m sure everything will be fine now that he’s dead.” Her voice is laced with sarcasm.</p>
<p>“What do you want me to do?” he says, his voice tight.</p>
<p>“I don’t know! Something. Anything.”</p>
<p>“You married into the darkest family in magic, dear,” says Baz. “You must have known what you were getting.”</p>
<p>She raises her eyes to his. “We both knew what we were getting,” she says. “Tell me, will you be going out tonight?”</p>
<p>Baz hesitates. When he speaks, his voice is casual. “Not tonight,” he says. “I want to see what the Families say.”</p>
<p>“Oh, I do hope it will be good news,” says Agatha sweetly. “I can’t wait to be the Mage’s wife.”</p>
<p>I watch his hand clench and unclench on the table. “Agatha, <em>dear</em>,” he says. I recognize that tone. It makes me want to reach for my sword. “If you didn’t want to be the Chosen One’s wife, you should have declined my proposal.”</p>
<p>“I thought we would change the World of Mages. Make it better.”</p>
<p>“We <em>will,”</em> he says. “But right now the Mage’s allies have all the power. We have to solve that problem before we can address the others.”</p>
<p>“How ironic that you killed the Mage,” Agatha says. “Because you sound just like him.” She stands, placing her napkin on the table. “Excuse me. I have a headache.”</p>
<p>She sweeps out. Her dress rustles by within a foot of where I’m hiding.</p>
<p>When she’s gone Baz puts down his fork. He drops his head into his hands; I see his long pinkish-pale fingers winding through his hair. I remember what the fine strands felt like under my hands.</p>
<p>I shift my weight behind the chair. My wings hurt from being clamped down so tightly and my tail is twitching; it snakes out and jostles the spindly leg of an end table. I grab at the table before anything falls, but Baz’s eyes have narrowed.</p>
<p>He’s next to me before I can take a breath. He kicks the chair aside—he’s frightfully strong—and seizes me by the throat. In a heartbeat I’m pressed up against the wall, my wings crushed painfully behind me. His hand is under my jaw, his other hand pinning my sword arm. (Not that I have a sword.) I can feel Ebb’s staff behind my back, but I can’t reach it.</p>
<p>His fangs are out. “Did the Coven send you?” he snarls.</p>
<p>It’s hard to talk with his hand around my throat. “Baz—“ I choke out.</p>
<p>His eyes narrow. “My name is Tyrannus.”</p>
<p>“Baz. That’s what your mother called you, isn’t it?”</p>
<p>He shakes me a bit, holding me easily with one hand; my head bangs painfully against the wall. <em>“What do you know about my mother?”</em></p>
<p>I pry at his hand with my free hand, trying to loosen his grip. His arm is like cold steel. “I know she was killed by vampires when you were five years old. I know they Turned you. I know you miss her.”</p>
<p>“Everyone knows that.”</p>
<p>“I know you can’t really love Agatha.<em>”</em></p>
<p>
  <em>“What?”</em>
</p>
<p>“Baz. You’re gay. You told me yourself.”</p>
<p>His fingers loosen. I drop to the floor, my wings sprawled around me. I rub at my throat. He’s staring at me, his eyes wide.</p>
<p>“I’ve never seen you before in my life,” he says. But he looks almost…haunted.</p>
<p>“Baz,” I say again. Isn’t that how you make a spell? “I know you won’t believe this, but I’m from a parallel universe. Or something. And in that world—“ I hesitate. “I’m your boyfriend.”</p>
<p>“My boyfriend,” he sneers. “Like I’d be with some kind of dragon thing.”</p>
<p>I feel my shoulders hunch. My wings pull in against my back as if they’re trying to disappear. Baz has always known just how to hurt me.</p>
<p>“I didn’t have the wings then,” I admit. I shake my head, trying to clear it. This isn’t going how I wanted. “Listen—Baz. What <em>happened</em> to you? What are you doing? You’re not a killer.”</p>
<p>“What do you know about me?” He turns away; at least he’s not grabbing me by the throat anymore.</p>
<p>“<em>Everything.</em> I was your roommate at Watford. I watched you for years—before I even knew why I was doing it!”</p>
<p>“I didn’t have a roommate. Things must be different in your world.”</p>
<p>“So you’re <em>not</em> gay?”</p>
<p>His eyes flick towards me, then away again. “No. That part is the same.”</p>
<p>“So what are you doing with Agatha?”</p>
<p>“Agatha and I have an arrangement,” he says. “I give her anything she wants, and she doesn’t have to give me anything she doesn’t want.”</p>
<p>“What about what <em>you</em> want?”</p>
<p>“What I want has nothing to do with it. The Mage was destroying our world. My family saw what he was doing. I had the opportunity to stop him. I did what I had to do.”</p>
<p>“So you’re just <em>leaning into</em> being evil?”</p>
<p>“The Pitches have always been dark.”</p>
<p>“I used to think that too, but I was <em>wrong</em>. I was <em>wrong</em> about you.”</p>
<p>He’s staring at me, and I can’t tell what he’s thinking.</p>
<p>I try again, even though it’s a laugh, me trying to convince Baz of anything with words. “Listen,” I say. “You’re not the Chosen One.”</p>
<p>His face twists. He starts to turn away. I step forward and grab him by the wrist. His skin is too warm beneath my hand.</p>
<p>“No—what I mean is, you don’t <em>want</em> to be the Chosen One.”</p>
<p>His face is still turned away, but at least he’s stopped.</p>
<p>“I should know,” I say. “<em>I</em> was the Chosen One.”</p>
<p>“You?” he sneers.</p>
<p>“Yeah. Y’know, <em>Let the greatest power of powers reign.</em> That was me, the atomic bomb of magic. You hated me for it at first. Look—“ I flare my wings until they cast looming shadows on the wall, until he tries to pull away. “I gave myself these just by thinking about it.”</p>
<p>He’s looking at me now. His eyes widen.</p>
<p>“But let me tell you, Baz, it was <em>shit</em>. You don’t want that. I was fighting from the moment I came into my magic. Everyone wanted something from me.” I yank on his wrist. “<em>Except you.” </em>I yank again. “You just wanted <em>me.”</em></p>
<p>He’s staring at me, and something is changing on his face. I think maybe I’m getting to him. I think—</p>
<p>And then another voice comes from behind me: “<strong>Stay back.</strong>”</p>
<p>Baz’s wrist is wrenched out of my grip. I go flying backwards; I hit the wall hard, my head ringing, and crumple to the ground. My wings are twisted beneath me. Everything is a bit fuzzy for a minute.</p>
<p>And when my head clears, I see Baz’s aunt Fiona standing in the doorway. She’s glaring down her wand at me, looking even more terrifying than usual.</p>
<p>“All right, Tyrannus?” she says out of the corner of her mouth, not taking her eyes off of me.</p>
<p>“Yes,” Baz says, rubbing at his wrist. “He’s not a threat.”</p>
<p>“What is he?” says Fiona. She’s dressed head to toe in black: black leather pants, a v-neck black T-shirt with something scrawled on it in red, black leather jacket. Her leather boots have soles at least three inches thick. She looks like she’s looking for something to stomp on. (Probably me.)</p>
<p>“He says he’s my—“ Baz hesitates. “Roommate. From another universe.”</p>
<p>“Seriously?” She raises one eyebrow. “And you believed him?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” Baz says. “He was convincing. And I don’t think he’s here to hurt me.”</p>
<p>“I’m not,” I say, rubbing at the back of my head. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”</p>
<p>Fiona snorts. “Right. You just happen to show up tonight of all nights. And you don’t want to hurt anyone.”</p>
<p>“It’s the truth.”</p>
<p>“We’ll see,” she says. She’s still pointing her wand at me.</p>
<p>Baz’s father appears in the doorway behind her. “Tyrannus. What is going on? Did the Coven send an assassin?” He’s wearing a dark grey suit with reddish highlights, and I absolutely cannot believe I was eating dinner with these people three nights ago. This seems so much closer to what I expected from Baz’s family.</p>
<p>“I’m not from the Coven,” I say, at the same time Baz says, “He’s not from the Coven.”</p>
<p>Baz frowns at me. “It’s under control, Father.”</p>
<p>“Are you quite sure? Your aunt is holding a wand to him.”</p>
<p>“It’s fine,” Baz says. “What happened at the meeting?”</p>
<p>“It’s begun,” Fiona says with satisfaction.</p>
<p>“You and Agatha should ready yourselves,” says Mr. Grimm. “We leave in an hour.”</p>
<p>“An hour?” I say. “What’s happening? Is it Watford?”</p>
<p>Baz’s father and Fiona both turn their heads to look at me. It’s chilling.</p>
<p>“Where did you hear that?” says Fiona.</p>
<p>“Um—“</p>
<p>“We don’t have time to question him now,” says Mr. Grimm, cutting me off. “We’ll find out what he knows on the way.” He turns to go. “Fiona, put him in one of the spare rooms,” he says over his shoulder. “Make sure he’s secure. If he <em>is</em> from the Coven, we can’t risk him warning them.”</p>
<p>Fiona takes a step forward, still with her wand on me. She looks like she’s going to enjoy it.</p>
<p>“I’m not going to fight,” I say to Baz. “I’m not going to fight you anymore.”</p>
<p>“Go and get ready,” Baz says to Fiona. “I’ll take him myself.”</p>
<p>She hesitates. “You sure, boyo? We don’t know what he is.”</p>
<p>Baz sneers. “Please. I am a vampire and a magician. I think I can handle one winged creature.”</p>
<p>She’s still hesitating. “Tyrannus—“</p>
<p>“Fiona. Am I the Chosen One or not?”</p>
<p>She nods at last. “Give me the staff,” she says, her wand still on me.</p>
<p>I shrug Ebb’s staff over my wings and hand it to her. I wasn’t lying; I’m not going to fight. It gives me a pang to hand over the staff, but I want her to take it and go.</p>
<p>Her eyes widen as she gets a good look at the staff. “Where did you get this?”</p>
<p>“Old friend,” I say. She takes another step towards me, eyes narrowed.</p>
<p>“Fiona,” says Baz. She pauses, then nods curtly. She takes the staff and vanishes through the doorway. I can hear her boots stomping off through the house.</p>
<p>“Baz,” I say urgently. “Come with me.”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“You’re going to let me go, right? Come with me.”</p>
<p>“Let you <em>go?”</em> He’s staring at me.</p>
<p>I’m staring now too. “I thought that was why—“</p>
<p>“I didn’t want Fiona to hurt you, but that’s all.” He slides a hand into his jacket and withdraws his wand. He points it at me, the curve of his wrist graceful. “Go on.”</p>
<p>“Baz—“</p>
<p>
  <em>“Go.” </em>
</p>
<p>I go.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Baz takes me to a hallway I haven’t seen before, in a different wing from his bedroom. Agatha comes out of a bedroom two doors down as we pass. She’s wearing dark jeans and tall boots and her hair is down.</p>
<p>“Tyrannus?”</p>
<p>“Good, darling,” he says. “Father and Fiona are back. It’s starting—we leave in an hour.”</p>
<p>“Who’s this?” she says, staring at me.</p>
<p>“Prisoner,” he says, chivvying me along. I feel Agatha’s eyes following us. I think about calling out to her—asking her to help me. But this Agatha doesn’t know me. (This Agatha is married to Baz.)</p>
<p>And besides, I honestly don’t know where I’d go. Back to Penny’s? That would only make things worse. No, I’ll stay here. With Baz.</p>
<p>Baz opens a door and gestures me into the room. It’s a bedroom I haven’t seen before, perfectly clean and impersonal. It’s clear no one lives in it. I wonder if there are wraiths in this one too.</p>
<p>He closes the door behind us and leans his long frame against it, crossing his arms over his chest. His hair is coming free of its gel and falling around his face; it’s longer, here, than it is in my world. It hurts my chest to look at him.</p>
<p>“Do you…need anything?” he says. “Food? Water?”</p>
<p>I feel like I should refuse on principle, but the truth is I’m starving. “Food,” I say. “Please.”</p>
<p>He nods and rings a bell next to the door. (His house. Has <em>servant’s bells.</em>) In a few minutes there’s a quiet knock at the door. He pokes his head out and exchanges soft words with someone, then closes the door again. I sit down cross-legged on the floor across from him. I’m suddenly tongue-tied. What do you say to your maybe-boyfriend-former-arch-nemesis-from-another-dimension? He obviously doesn’t know what to say either; he’s looking down, tapping his wand against one long leg.</p>
<p>“You can put that away,” I say. “I told you, I’m not gonna fight.”</p>
<p>He looks at me for a moment, then nods and tucks his wand away in his jacket again.</p>
<p>“Shouldn’t you be getting ready?” I say. “It’s your big day, yeah?” I mean it to be cutting, but it comes out sad instead.</p>
<p>He nods. But he doesn’t move.</p>
<p>“Where are your stepmum and the kids?”</p>
<p>“Daphne took them away,” he says. “She wanted to keep them safe. And—“ he hesitates. “I don’t think she approves of the war.”</p>
<p>“Good for her,” I say. “Because the war is <em>idiotic.”</em></p>
<p>“What do you know?” he says. But there’s no heat in it.</p>
<p>There’s another knock at the door. He opens it again and takes a tray from someone outside. He crosses the room, puts the tray down in front of me, and retreats back to the door.</p>
<p>“I don’t bite,” I say. He flinches.</p>
<p>“But you do, don’t you?” I say. “Baz. Are you eating <em>people?”</em></p>
<p>“No one who isn’t willing!”</p>
<p>“There are people <em>asking</em> to die?”</p>
<p>“No!” he says. “They don’t—”</p>
<p>“So you can just—what? Take a sip and stop?”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“Is that what Agatha was saying? You sneak out at night, bite a few blokes, then come home to your wife?”</p>
<p>He flushes—an actual, honest-to-God flush that colours his cheeks red. I can’t help staring.</p>
<p>“Are you really—“ He hesitates. “My boyfriend?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” I say. “Maybe. It’s complicated.”</p>
<p>He takes a few steps forward and seats himself across from me, his legs folded to one side. I take a bite. (It’s roast lamb and roasted potatoes and some kind of deliciously minty sauce. Even in this universe, Baz’s family has the <em>best</em> cooks.)</p>
<p>He lets me eat in silence for a few minutes. His hand is fiddling with one of his suit buttons. It’s hard not to look at him—so much like the Baz in my world (<em>my</em> Baz) and so much not.</p>
<p>“Is it—“ he hesitates again. “Better there?”</p>
<p>I think for a second, chewing. I think of the Mage and Ebb, lying on the floor of the White Chapel. I think of standing atop Blackfriars Bridge, ready to jump.</p>
<p>Then I think of the Weeping Tower, all charred and melted. Of Penny, all alone with her books. Baz and Agatha.</p>
<p>“Yes,” I say. “It’s better there.”</p>
<p>He looks down again. I put my fork down.</p>
<p>“Baz.”</p>
<p>“It’s Tyrannus.”</p>
<p>“It’s <em>Baz.”</em></p>
<p>I reach out and cup my hand around the back of his head. I’ve been wanting to do this, I realize, ever since I got here. I’ve been wanting to do this <em>forever.</em> His hair feels just the same, whispering through my fingers. I lean forward, over my plate, and press my lips to his.</p>
<p>I mean to be gentle (this isn’t <em>my</em> Baz) but his lips part under mine and he gasps a little into my mouth, and it doesn’t stay that way. I push the plate aside; his arms come around me, and his hands push up into my hair. I don’t understand how I can miss him so much when he’s right here, under my hands.</p>
<p>My tongue is in his mouth and it’s warm, so warm. I push against his shoulders and he falls backward; I’m on top of him, pressing into him. My wings flare out behind us; it’s dark here, under their shadow. I yank at his shirt, pulling it loose from his trousers. His jacket is already off one shoulder, and my hand is under his shirt, feeling the silk of his skin over the muscles of his abdomen. I’m not sure I would dare to do this, with my Baz—but this <em>isn’t</em> my Baz, and I don’t exist. And it doesn’t matter, because his hands are working my T-shirt up over my stomach, one hand reaching under for my nipple.</p>
<p>I gasp and throw my head back; it feels <em>good</em>, and I’m fully in my body, ignoring the trickle of worry that this isn’t right, this is a different Baz, a Baz who has done this before. Instead I bring my head back down and kiss him as if I might swallow him, as if I might drown in him. He makes a noise and shifts beneath me, trying to roll me over. The wings get in the way and we fetch up on our sides; he winds one arm around my hips, pulling us together hard. I’m panting into his mouth and this is somehow both the best and worst thing that’s happened since I came here.</p>
<p>His other hand comes up and wraps itself around my neck, his thumb pressing at the tender spot beneath my jaw. My hips press harder into him and I turn my head in the direction he’s pushing.</p>
<p>And then he makes an inarticulate noise and his fangs bury themselves in my neck, right at the spot where my neck and shoulders meet.</p>
<p>I suck my breath in hard. Everything in me is suddenly concentrated on the prick of his fangs—more pressure than pain—and the pulsing of his mouth on me. My hands clench in his jacket, whether to pull him closer or push him away, I’m not sure which.</p>
<p>I’ve thought about Baz biting me before. (Of <em>course</em> I have.)(First he was my mortal enemy, and then he was my boyfriend, and he’s a <em>vampire</em>. Anyone would have thought about it.) I didn’t expect it to feel <em>good</em>. My head sags to one side and he gathers me closer, his fangs sinking deeper. I let out a soft noise. His hand is still wrapped around my neck, long fingers pressing into my skin, and I can feel my forehead digging into the thick rich-person carpet. His cock is hard against me, and his fangs are inside me, and I can feel his mouth pulling at me, pulling, and in all my imagining I didn’t think it would be like this.</p>
<p>I scrabble at his clothes—my hands aren’t quite answering—and he shifts his hips a bit to make room for me, but his mouth is still sucking, sucking. And it’s glorious, and terrible, and I don’t have to think at all, just go where his hands push me. My wing comes up and drapes itself over us; the light underneath is red, and we might be in our own world, just his mouth on me and my life flowing into him, just like my magic used to do.</p>
<p>I’m starting to feel lightheaded, and that feels good too, a bit like I’m drunk. But I want to kiss him again.</p>
<p>“Baz,” I say, pushing at his shoulders a bit.</p>
<p>He doesn’t answer, just pushes his chin into me harder. I can feel his long hair whispering against my bare neck.</p>
<p>“Baz,” I say, pushing harder. He growls at me; there’s nothing human in it. One arm is wrapped around my neck, the other wound around my waist, both of them harder than steel. And for all that I’ve been living with a vampire for seven years, I realize I’ve forgotten how strong he is.</p>
<p><em>“Baz,”</em> I say, and now—much too late—I’m finally afraid.</p>
<p>The room is starting to tip, leering gargoyles and dark wood tilting at strange angles. My heart is beating frantically against my ribs, pumping more of my life into Baz. I’m so cold, and he’s so warm. He’s stolen all my heat.</p>
<p>I always thought he would kill me. But I didn’t think it would be like this.</p>
<p>My vision is going foggy. Soon it will go altogether. It’s getting harder to care. I shove at him, feebly, just because I always fight.</p>
<p>Then he pushes me away, hard. I’m dimly aware of him scrambling backward on his hands and knees. I slump into the floor; I can feel the nap of the carpet imprinting itself on my cheek. Then I drift for a time. I hear him whispering spells over me; I think his voice is shaking. Then a door opening and closing, and another voice. Agatha’s.</p>
<p>“What have you done, Tyrannus?” Her voice is heavily laced with something—disgust, I think. Then I hear her voice spelling me as well: <strong>Get well soon. An apple a day.</strong> (Agatha’s always been good at healing magic. She’s had a lot of practice.)</p>
<p>Some of the life is coming back to me. I thrash a little, trying to sit up. Someone—Agatha—is pressing a cup to my mouth. “Here,” she says. <strong>“Thicker than water.”</strong> I drink. It still tastes like warm water, but strength seems to flow back into me along with it. I crack my eyes open.</p>
<p>Agatha is bending over me, her arm supporting my head. Her other hand is holding the cup to my lips. Behind her Baz has his back pressed against the door, his face ashen beneath the bloom of fresh blood. He has one hand to his lips. The back of his hand is smeared with red.</p>
<p>“You could have killed him,” says Agatha. “We have an agreement. Remember? Do whatever you like—whoever you like. Just not in the house. Who is he, anyway?”</p>
<p>“No one,” says Baz.</p>
<p>“Well, he deserves better than this,” Agatha says. She peers into my face. “All right, then?”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” I say. My voice sounds creaky.</p>
<p>“Drink all the rest of this, yeah?” She hands me the cup and stands. “Come on, Tyrannus. You’ve had your fun. It’s time to get ready.” She sweeps out of the room, pale hair swinging behind her.</p>
<p>Left alone, Baz and I stare at each other. His hand is still up at his mouth. My blood is on his hands.</p>
<p>“You almost drained me.” I think I’m feeling something, but my head is still cloudy and I’m not sure what it is.</p>
<p>“But I didn’t,” he whispers.</p>
<p>“Am I going to be a vampire now?”</p>
<p>“No. That’s not—it takes more than that.”</p>
<p>I’m still lightheaded, and my insides are a roil of pain and frustrated desire and exhaustion and betrayal. “I was wrong before,” I say. “About your name. Tyrannus suits you.”</p>
<p>His face goes even paler. He gets to his feet, slowly, and backs out of the room. He closes the door behind him. I can hear his voice outside the door, casting spells to keep me in.</p>
<p>I collapse to the floor again, cradling my head in my arms.</p>
<p>I think of Baz, his mouth full of knives. Baz, holding me in the snow. <em>Because we match,</em> he said.</p>
<p>This isn’t Baz. I don’t know what happened to him, to make him this way.</p>
<p>(But I do. I wished for it myself.)</p>
<p>Baz and I grew up together in a tower in Mummers House, twining around each other like wild rosebushes, slashing each other with our thorns until we bled. But we shaped each other, too, like roses on a trellis. We made each other stronger. We bloomed together.</p>
<p>Tyrannus isn’t my match. I thought he might be, briefly. I wanted him to be.</p>
<p>But he grew up alone.</p>
<p>I close my eyes, but I keep seeing my own blood on Tyrannus’ lips.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I think I doze a little. Tyrannus and Agatha repaired most of the blood loss, but I’m still so tired.</p>
<p>I wake when they come to get me. Fiona frog-marches me down the stairs, casts a <strong>chains that bind</strong> on my hands and wings, and pushes me into a ridiculously posh SUV. I see Ebb’s staff in the back, shoved in with a bunch of bins and gear.</p>
<p>I end up sitting on one side of the back seat with Tyrannus on the other side, Agatha between us. My wings keep twitching; they don’t like being bound. Tyrannus turns his head away from me and looks out the window.</p>
<p>Fiona twists around in her seat and points her wand at me. “Tell us what you know,” she says.</p>
<p>“Don’t bother,” says Tyrannus. He sounds bored. “I questioned him already. He doesn’t know anything.” Agatha shoots a hard glance at him, but he’s still looking away.</p>
<p>“Oho,” says Fiona. She looks impressed. “Well done, Tyrannus.”</p>
<p>I lean my head back against the headrest and try to doze again.</p>
<p>It’s after midnight when we arrive at Watford. (Of course it’s Watford. It’s always Watford.) The gates are guarded by five people I don’t recognize. Malcolm speaks quietly to them and we roll through and on across the drawbridge. There’s already a clear path through the snow, crisscrossed with tyre marks.</p>
<p>The courtyard is a chaos of people with torches and headlamps and shouting. Someone has set up a few of those giant lights they use for nighttime motorway construction and, probably, enhanced them with magic. I don’t recognize most of the people—the Mage made sure I didn’t get to know the Old Families. I wonder what happened to Nicodemus.</p>
<p>They shove me into an empty classroom and ward me in with a magician I don’t recognize standing guard. I try throwing myself against the door and battering at the windows, but the wards are too strong.</p>
<p>Finally I ball myself up in a corner with my wings over me for warmth and go immediately to sleep.</p>
<p>When I wake up again it’s after daybreak and the war has started.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They drag me up to the ramparts. Tyrannus, his father, Fiona and Agatha are up there already. I see a few other faces I recognize: Dev and Niall, Marcus Grimm. They put two guards on me; one of them has Ebb’s staff slung over his shoulder.</p>
<p>It’s cold, the wind whipping down over the hills, and Agatha’s hair is streaming around her face. Tyrannus has his hand up to block the sun; black tendrils of hair are curling around his fingers. I look away.</p>
<p>Below, standing in the snow on the Great Lawn, are the Coven’s forces. There are a few hundred of them at most; they seem painfully sparse to storm Watford’s walls, although of course they’re all magicians. I see centaurs, fauns, even a few pixies scattered among them. There are even fewer people on the side of the Old Families, but they hold the walls and had the night to prepare.</p>
<p>Right in front, where the drawbridge would meet the lawn if it were down, are Penny’s parents, flanked by Dr. and Mrs. Wellbelove and a few adults I don’t recognize—probably Coven members. Penny is standing a bit behind them, looking jittery.</p>
<p>“Simon!” she shouts when she sees me. My stomach turns over. <em>Penny, what are you doing here? You should be safe at home.</em></p>
<p>“That’s right!” Fiona shouts down. “We have your winged spy!”</p>
<p>“I’m not a spy,” I say, and my guard elbows me hard in the side.</p>
<p>“We don’t want to fight,” calls Penny’s mum. “We’re all magicians here. We all love Watford. Let down the drawbridge and we’ll talk.”</p>
<p>“Why have you brought an army, if you just want to talk?” Fiona shouts back down. (They’ve all spelled themselves to make their voices carry; I think Fiona just likes shouting.)</p>
<p>“No one wants war,” says Dr. Wellbelove. “But you’ve closed the gates of Watford against your fellow mages. <em>Magic separates us from the world; let nothing separate us from each other</em>.”</p>
<p>“A fine sentiment,” says Mr. Grimm. “But the truth is we’ve been divided for a long time.”</p>
<p>“You have our daughter,” says Mrs. Wellbelove tearfully. “If you mean well, send out Agatha to us.”</p>
<p>“Agatha is not a hostage—she’s an adult and joined us willingly,” says Mr. Grimm. Agatha looks pained, but she doesn’t argue. “She’s chosen to stay with her husband—my son. The Greatest Mage.”</p>
<p>“Don’t be ridiculous, Malcolm,” says Penny’s dad. “Tyrannus is powerful, but he’s not the Greatest Mage.”</p>
<p>“How would you know, you dud?” Fiona sneers.</p>
<p>“Watford is the oldest symbol of magic in Britain,” Mr. Grimm says. “My wife—Tyrannus’ mother—was headmistress here before the Mage’s coup. Tyrannus comes from a long line of heads of Watford. The school by right belongs to him.”</p>
<p>“He’s a <em>vampire,”</em> says one of the other Coven members. “No matter whose son he is, Watford cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of a dark creature.<em>”</em> There are murmurs of agreement among the Coven’s forces. I sneak a look at Tyrannus. He’s looking down at them with a slight sneer, his wand held loosely in one hand and his face remote and cold.</p>
<p>“He was Turned through no fault of his own,” says Mr. Grimm. “In the same attack that killed Natasha—an attack plotted by the Mage. He and his minions were the ones in league with the dark creatures. He was experimenting on <em>students!</em> We asked for free and fair elections. You declined. You have left us no choice but to fight for what we want.”</p>
<p>“And that is?” says Penny’s mum.</p>
<p>“Tyrannus will be named Mage and Head of Watford,” says Mr. Grimm. “He will oversee bringing forward evidence of the Mage’s crimes so that everyone in the World of Mages can see it. Any property seized in the former Mage’s raids will be returned to its rightful owners. The Mage’s illegal militia—the so-called Mage’s Men—will be disbanded, and any member who has acted unlawfully will stand trial. All Coven seats will be put up for open election, and the newly constituted Coven will hold an immediate vote on the former Mage’s so-called reforms.” He sneers, looking for a moment eerily like his son. “I have every faith they will do the right thing.”</p>
<p>There are murmurs and shouts from the magicians before the walls. The Coven representatives put their heads together, exchanging quiet words.</p>
<p>I’m watching Tyrannus. His face is empty, betraying nothing. My stomach is churning, anger and sadness mixed together. Tyrannus hurt me. But he grew up in a cage, and he didn’t have me to challenge him. To teach him to fight.</p>
<p>Penny’s mum is looking at him too. “Let our future Mage speak for himself, Malcolm,” she says. “Tyrannus, is this really what you want?”</p>
<p>A panicked look crosses his face. He looks quickly at me; our eyes catch, and he looks away. Then Mr. Grimm claps him hard on the back.</p>
<p>“Natasha would be so proud of you, son,” he says.</p>
<p>Tyrannus’ face firms. He steps forward. He holds both hands out in front of him; then, with a graceful flick of his wrists, twin flames appear above his palms.</p>
<p>“My name is Tyrannus Grimm-Pitch,” he says. The spell carries his voice booming over the walls. In its echoes I hear all the years of training in elocution.</p>
<p>“I am the son of two long lines of fire mages,” he says. “My mother died defending Watford. Her bones lie in the Catacombs below. I claim my destiny not for myself, but for her.”</p>
<p>He steps forward again, his voice growing louder. I feel sick listening to him—he is so exactly what I always thought Baz was. I can’t think what to do to stop this. I’m too late—<em>years</em> too late. I wasn’t here to prevent it.</p>
<p>I wasn’t here.</p>
<p>“I may be a vampire, but I am a magician as well. The Mage killed my mother; he tried to kill me as well. Instead I was reborn from the fire as something new. Something <em>stronger.”</em> He steps forward again; he’s right up to the edge of the walls now. “My mother died for Watford. I died with her. I am not afraid to die again. And I will <em>die</em> before I surrender Watford to those who would profane hundreds of years of tradition.”</p>
<p>He looks down his long nose at the Coven forces. His face is beautiful and cold.</p>
<p>“Agree to our terms and no one else has to die,” he says. “Otherwise?<em>”</em> The fires on his palms surge, lighting his face in harsh orange. “Watford is <em>ours. </em>Come and take it.”</p>
<p>For a moment everything is still. I can see Penny staring up at us, her parents just in front, their faces etched with worry. I see the cruel smile on Fiona’s face, the fear on Agatha’s, the sternness in Mr. Grimm’s. In the silence I can feel the whole World of Mages hanging in the balance.</p>
<p><em>Find a way,</em> I urge them silently. <em>Don’t let this happen.</em></p>
<p>And then, into the silence, come shouts from behind us. I swing around so fast I almost knock myself over.</p>
<p>There’s a stream of men surging out the doors of the White Chapel and into the courtyard. They’re carrying swords and bows and wands and dressed all in green.</p>
<p>“Fuck,” says Fiona.</p>
<p>“They must have found a way in through the Catacombs,” says Mr. Grimm.</p>
<p>The Old Families are already racing down the stairs to meet them. I see Dev and Niall in the vanguard. Fiona vaults over the crenellations, a fierce grin tugging at her lips, and drifts gently down to the courtyard. (That must be where Baz learned his <strong>float like a butterfly.</strong>) Now the invaders are close enough for me to see that the one in the lead is Penny’s brother Premal, with the Mage’s lieutenant Stephen a step behind him.</p>
<p>“You just wanted to talk, did you?” Mr. Grimm shouts down to the Coven forces.</p>
<p>“That isn’t us!” shouts Penny’s mum. “We didn’t know!” Behind her, Penny is twisting her ring around on her finger, looking terrified.</p>
<p>Tyrannus is looking between the Coven and the Mage’s Men. Fiona is already down in the courtyard, slinging spells at the Mage’s Men as fast as she can say them.</p>
<p>Mr. Grimm holds his wand aloft, a fireball forming around it. He flicks his wrist, sending the fireball towards Penny and her parents. Penny’s mum pushes Penny aside and slashes her wand, turning the fireball so it sizzles into the moat. There’s a howling noise and merwolf heads emerge from the water, noses pointed to the sky.</p>
<p>“Go!” Mr. Grimm shouts.</p>
<p>Tyrannus hesitates for a moment, then follows his aunt over the ramparts.</p>
<p>I curse. He’s not my Baz, but I still can’t let him fight alone.</p>
<p>There are spells coming over the walls now. Mr. Grimm is crouching behind a crenellation, ducking from behind it to send spells down at the Coven. Agatha has made herself as small as possible behind the wall. Her hands are up at her face, her eyes squeezed tightly closed.</p>
<p>With my wings bound I can’t fly—but my guards are distracted by the fight. I kick one of them in the stomach and hurl myself on the other, bound hands and wings and all. He goes down, striking his head on the base of a crenellation. (I hope he’s not dead, but I have bigger problems right now.)</p>
<p>I surge up again and put my foot on the other guard’s throat. “Free me,” I say, holding out my hands. He raises his hand—his magickal instrument is a gold bangle in the shape of a snake—and whispers a spell. My hands come apart; there’s no time for the wings. I scoop Ebb’s staff up from the ground and run for the stairs.</p>
<p>The steps are slippery with snow and my bound wings make me awkward, but the staff helps me balance. At the bottom of the stairs a man in green charges at me with a sword. I swing the staff, catching him under the chin with the curved crook end and driving the other end into his stomach. He goes down.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what side I’m on. I’m not sure it matters.</p>
<p>I swing my head, looking for Tyrannus. There—he and Fiona have taken refuge behind one of the cars in the courtyard, slinging spells from behind it. I run towards them, but something barrels into me from the side and sends me into the snow.</p>
<p>It’s Marcus; he’s straddling me, holding a wand on me. Then just as quickly he goes tumbling off. I leap up: he’s tussling with another figure, rolling end over end in the snow. His opponent ends up on top. Dirty blond hair, leather jacket. Nicodemus. I only have a split second to recognize him before he bends and rips out Marcus’ throat with his fangs.</p>
<p>He rises, blood dripping from his chin. “Free my wings,” I call to him.</p>
<p>He pulls a knife and cuts through the bonds. They fall away and my wings snap open, desperate to be free. I realize too late that it makes me a target. More of the Mage’s Men are rushing towards me. I spin, swinging Ebb’s staff, striking the first attacker in the back of the knees and the second in the side.</p>
<p>Tyrannus has turned to stare at me, his mouth hanging open.</p>
<p>“Tyrannus,” Fiona snaps, trying to pull him back down. She has her back turned to the Mage’s Men, pulling on Tyrannus’ arm. So she doesn’t see it coming when one of Premal’s spells flies over the car and takes her in the chest. She slumps to the ground and lies still.</p>
<p>“Fiona!” Nicodemus howls. He moves faster than my eye can follow, scooping up her body and cradling it against his chest. Tyrannus is crouching next to him in the snow, holding one of Fiona’s hands between his.</p>
<p>“Wake up,” he says, chafing at her hands. There are tears leaking from his eyes. “Get back up and fight, you bitch.” He takes out his wand with one shaking hand and starts murmuring spells over her, but she doesn’t move.</p>
<p>All around them the battle is raging on. The Coven’s forces are battering at the drawbridge. The fight in the courtyard has broken into a hundred smaller fights, magicians dueling everywhere I look, taking cover behind cars and school buildings.</p>
<p>I move towards Tyrannus. A spell sizzles by my head, narrowly missing my wing. I tuck them against my back and keep moving.</p>
<p>Tyrannus drops Fiona’s hand and stands. His fangs are out; his face is a mask of rage and pain. He vaults over the car in front of him and blurs towards the Mage’s Men.</p>
<p>“Tyrannus!” I shout, but he doesn’t stop.</p>
<p>He barrels into the Mage’s Men and with one graceful twist of his wrists snaps Premal’s neck. Premal falls to the ground. His face is turned towards me, his eyes open and staring. He looks so much like Penny.</p>
<p>Tyrannus leaps on another of the Mage’s Men and buries his fangs in his neck. The other Mage’s Men pile onto him, slashing at him with swords.</p>
<p>My wings are out. I leap into the air. Spiraling upward, I can see the whole battle clearly. Penny is desperately firing off spells at the walls. Her father is lying on the ground, her mum standing guard over him. Malcolm and Agatha are still on the ramparts. Agatha is up now, hurling spells at the forces below with her wand. Tears are pouring down her face. Her father is holding a magickal shield over several of the Coven members while Agatha’s mother calls out to her from behind it.</p>
<p>Everywhere magician is fighting magician: the World of Mages tearing itself apart.</p>
<p>I rise higher.</p>
<p>In the courtyard I see Dev fall with a sword in the gut. Niall throws himself on Dev’s attacker. Tyrannus throws off a knot of attackers, howling; he’s bleeding from more wounds than I can count, but still fighting. Stephen lights a fire on his wand and hurls it towards him. Tyrannus blocks it with a slash of his wand, but Stephen is already forming another. The light washes Tyrannus’ skin gold and reflects in his eyes.</p>
<p>I’m too late. I couldn’t stop this.</p>
<p>The other world was better. Even if the Coven throws me in a tower for the rest of my life. Even if the magic I stole never comes back to the dead spots. Even if Baz doesn’t want me now that I’m a dragon thing instead of the Greatest Mage. Penny and Baz would still be <em>themselves</em>. There would still be hope for peace.</p>
<p>It’s too late for this world—but it’s not too late for mine.</p>
<p>Maybe it’s true that I fuck everything up. Maybe I will again. But everything is fucked anyway.</p>
<p>And maybe I can help, too. I could at least try.</p>
<p>I alight on the roof of the White Chapel. My feet slip in the snow and I grab onto the spire for support. I think I’m crying.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” I say into the sky. “I was wrong.”</p>
<p>Suddenly I’m shouting. “Clarence! Do you hear me? I was wrong. Take it back. <em>Please.</em> Take it back.”</p>
<p>I squeeze my eyes tightly shut. I can feel tears leaking from beneath the lids.</p>
<p>I feel something wash over me, like a warm ray of sunlight. I hear Clarence’s voice, so close that he might be speaking directly into my ear.</p>
<p>
  <strong>“As you wish.”</strong>
</p>
<p>Then the warm feeling is gone and there’s nothing but cool air on my skin.</p>
<p>I open my eyes.</p>
<p>It’s nighttime. Cool moonlight pours down on Watford’s quiet grounds. Below me there are shouts and torches moving closer in the snow.</p>
<p>I close my eyes again. “Thank you,” I breathe.</p>
<p>I let go of the spire and let myself drift downward, through the blown out windows of the White Chapel.</p>
<p>Penny and Baz are lying there, still asleep. I pull in a deep shuddering breath at the sight of them.</p>
<p>I dip a corner of my shirt in snow (I’m back in the grey suit again) and use it to gently wash the blood from Baz’s face. He murmurs a bit in his sleep and moves closer to me. I close my eyes again, feeling more tears prick the backs of my eyelids.</p>
<p>Carefully I fit myself in beside him. I drape one wing over him and close my eyes.</p>
<p>Listening to the familiar sound of Baz’s breath, I wait for the Coven.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Penny’s mum takes us all to our room in the top of Mummers House. When I come through the door and see its familiar lines—two beds, two wardrobes, the phantom scent of cedar and bergamot—I have to close my eyes to keep from crying again. But no one seems to think that’s odd.</p>
<p>There are explanations and phone calls and a first pot of tea. I don’t tell them about Clarence and the spell; there’s already too much, and I’m not sure they’ll believe me. (I hardly believe it myself.) Instead I sit next to Baz on the edge of his bed, our arms just touching.</p>
<p>At last they leave, taking Penny with them (I think they’re going to her room in the Cloisters). Baz and I are alone in our room. The lights are off and moonlight is filtering through the windows, highlighting the edges of Baz’s profile in silver.</p>
<p>For a while we just sit there, side by side. Then Baz bumps my shoulder gently with his.</p>
<p>“All right, Snow?”</p>
<p>I turn to him. I take both his hands in mine, as if we’re going to cast a starfield again. His skin is cool under my fingers.</p>
<p>“I have to tell you something,” I say. “But it sounds crazy, and I’m not sure you’re going to believe me.”</p>
<p>He tilts his head, looking at me quizzically. “All right.”</p>
<p>“And you have to promise not to tell anyone. Not Penny, not your family, not anyone.”</p>
<p>“I told you, I trust them—“</p>
<p>I jiggle his hands a bit, impatiently. “No, that’s not why. I think it might hurt them to know. I think it might—make things worse.”</p>
<p>He regards me for a long moment, his face pale and serious in the moonlight. But his curiosity gets the better of him in the end, and he nods. His hair is falling loose across his forehead, and I want to brush it back. But I don’t let go of his hands.</p>
<p>“After—what happened in the White Chapel. When you and Penny were asleep. I left and I—went to Blackfriars Bridge. Not to the numpties. To the top.”</p>
<p>His eyes sharpen and his hands tighten around mine. I think he’s hearing more than I’m saying. I hurry on.</p>
<p>“There was a man. A—magician, I think. He—jumped. And I saved him and we were talking afterwards and I…I wished I’d never been born. And he said <em>As you wish</em>, and I think it was a spell.”</p>
<p>“Snow. You utter nightmare. Haven’t you ever seen <em>It’s a Wonderful Life?”</em></p>
<p>“No. Agatha said it was too depressing.”</p>
<p>“It’s not depressing, it’s <em>meaningful</em>...never mind, that’s not important.” He shakes his head. “What happened?”</p>
<p>“Everything changed. I—can’t tell you all of it. I don’t want to. Maybe someday, I don’t know.”</p>
<p>His eyes are fixed on my face. “Was I there?”</p>
<p>I nod.</p>
<p>“Was it bad?”</p>
<p>I nod again. “I didn’t think it would be. I thought it would be better. But it wasn’t.”</p>
<p>“Of <em>course</em> it wasn’t!” He sounds angry.</p>
<p>“What do you mean, <em>of course?</em> You’re the one who’s always telling me I’m the worst Chosen One ever to be chosen!<em>”</em></p>
<p>“Snow.” He shakes his head again, like a horse trying to shake loose a fly. “Simon. I was lying. I was <em>jealous.”</em></p>
<p>“But you were <em>right,”</em> I insist. “Baz. I fuck up <em>everything</em>. I was the most powerful magician in the world, but I couldn’t even control my magic unless you were doing it for me. And now—“ I look down. “I don’t even have that. I’m not even a magician anymore. I’m some kind of <em>dragon thing.”</em></p>
<p>“You think that’s important to me?” he says fiercely.</p>
<p>“I <em>know</em> it is. You—said so.” I’m still looking down, so I don’t see him moving until I feel his finger, lightly touching my wing. I look up, startled, and find him looking into my face. Holding my eyes, he strokes one finger lightly along the edge of one wing. The wing shivers under his touch, and the rest of me with it.</p>
<p>“It’s warm,” he says.</p>
<p>“You’re cold.”</p>
<p>“I like the wings,” he says.</p>
<p>“You’re just saying that. To be kind.”</p>
<p>“Snow. Have you ever known me to be kind?” He strokes along the wing again, a little harder this time. I close my eyes.</p>
<p>“I like the wings,” he says again. There’s a hint of a laugh in his voice. “And the tail has <em>definite</em> possibilities.”</p>
<p>My eyes fly open. I’m caught somewhere between hysterical laughter and indignation. He laughs at me again, and I remember how I used to think he had only two expressions.</p>
<p>“Simon. I’ve been daydreaming about you since I was fifteen. Longer than that, really. Did you really think a couple of extra appendages would stop me?”</p>
<p>I laugh shakily. “What is it Penny would call it? <em>Bonus content.”</em></p>
<p>“Bonus Snow.” He reaches out and puts one hand on my jaw, and for a moment I think of Tyrannus, pushing my head aside. But instead Baz tips my chin upward, his hand cool along my jaw, and kisses me gently.</p>
<p>I lose the thread for a bit while he kisses me. His lips are soft and cool on mine, searching. I’m not sure what he’s looking for, but I think maybe we can find it together. My arms come up around his neck, and I’m glad I came back. So glad.</p>
<p>Finally I pull away. “Baz.”</p>
<p>“Mmmmm?” His eyes are still closed.</p>
<p>“There was more.”</p>
<p>“Can it wait?”</p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p>“Shame.” But he opens his eyes and looks at me again. In the moonlight he’s all black and silver, like something out of a silent movie. He’s so fucking beautiful.</p>
<p>“I saw the war,” I say, and Baz’s eyes widen. He sits up all the way. “It was…terrible. Everyone fighting. People dying. The whole World of Mages coming apart. We can’t let that happen.”</p>
<p>He sits and lets that sink in for a bit. I can tell he wants to ask me more questions, but he doesn’t. Finally he nods.</p>
<p>“We can’t,” he agrees.</p>
<p>“That’s one reason I came back. To stop it. I need you to help me.”</p>
<p>He opens his mouth to say something, then closes it again. He laughs a little, ruefully.</p>
<p>“Snow. Are you saying you want to save the world again?”</p>
<p>I nod. Firmly. “Yes.”</p>
<p>He shrugs. “Well, let’s save the fucking world, then. Can we sleep first, though?”</p>
<p>“One more thing,” I say, and he groans.</p>
<p>“You menace. Isn’t that <em>enough?”</em></p>
<p>“You can bite people,” I say. His eyes go wide. “I mean—you can bite people and <em>stop</em>. And not Turn them.”</p>
<p>He’s gone still. “I see. Do I want to know how you know that?”</p>
<p>I hesitate. “No.” But after a moment I reach up and pull the neckline of my shirt aside. (I’m back in my Watford pyjamas and T-shirt.) There’s a faint silver scar there, two tiny puncture wounds. I saw it in the mirror when I was washing up.</p>
<p>He’s gone pale. Paler. “Simon. Did I hurt you?”</p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p>
  <em>“Did I hurt you?”</em>
</p>
<p>“<em>No.</em> I mean, a little. But it wasn’t you.” He starts to turn away, and I grab him by the arm. “Baz. This is why I didn’t want to tell anyone. But it <em>wasn’t you.”</em></p>
<p>He still looks like he doesn’t believe me.</p>
<p>“Baz.” I’m blushing now, but I’m going to say it. “It…felt good, too.”</p>
<p>His eyes widen, then narrow again. But at least he’s not trying to get away from me anymore.</p>
<p>“All I’m saying,” I persist, “is that the fangs have <em>definite possibilities</em>.”</p>
<p>I can feel my whole face burning. Maybe Baz should just put me out of my misery right now. (The world would just have to get along without me.)</p>
<p>There’s a long pause. I can’t tell whether I should be mortified or worried.</p>
<p>Then he makes a noise, and I realize he’s laughing. His shoulders are shaking, and then the laughter is pealing out of him, bright as bells, filling up all the corners of the room where we grew up together. I shove him, a little, and he falls back into the bed, still laughing.</p>
<p>“Snow,” he says. “You’re still going to be the death of me.”</p>
<p>I’m glaring at him, but I can feel the laughter bubbling up in my belly.</p>
<p>“Come here, Simon,” he says, and pulls me down into the bed with him.</p>
<p>When I kiss him I can still taste the laughter on his lips. My wings flare out behind me, then settle softly around us, and we don’t need to say any more.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s close to dawn when I wake up again. Baz’s bed is too small for both of us, especially with the wings, but neither of us mind. One of his arms is thrown over my side, and my face is pressed into the curve of his shoulder. Our legs are tangled together. I lie there for a while and just listen to him breathe.</p>
<p>Then I disentangle myself—carefully, letting him sleep—and get dressed.</p>
<p>It’s a short flight from Mummers House to the walls. I stand on the ramparts and watch the sun climb up from behind the hills. The snow lies clean and untouched over the Great Lawn, only marred by the line of tyre tracks and footprints between the outer gate and the drawbridge. There’s no army at the gate. There won’t be. I won’t allow it.</p>
<p>I feel it when he appears at my shoulder.</p>
<p>“Clarence,” I say, without turning my head.</p>
<p>“Hello, Simon,” he says. I turn then. He’s wearing the same outfit as before: an old-timey suit under a tan trench coat. He’s smiling now, crinkling the laugh lines around his eyes.</p>
<p>“What,” I say carefully, “the hell?”</p>
<p>“I thought it might help,” he says. “To see the way things would have been without you. Every life changes the world. Yours more than most.” He shrugs. “Also, I’m new at this.”</p>
<p>I think of what the other Penny said: that no magician has the power to do what he did. “Who <em>are</em> you?” I say.</p>
<p>He looks out over the wall to the hills beyond. “The tooth fairy is real,” he says.</p>
<p><em>“But Father Christmas isn’t,”</em> I say, remembering.</p>
<p>He turns to me, and now his blue eyes are serious. “If the tooth fairy is real—why not angels?”</p>
<p>A wind sweeps down from the hills and he’s gone.</p>
<p>He’s left something behind. I bend down to pick it up from the stones. A book: beige cover, blocky red lettering. <em>The Fellowship of the Ring</em>.</p>
<p>I open the book and flip through the pages. I pause at the inside front cover. There’s an inscription written there.</p>
<p>
  <em>Simon,</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Good luck saving the world. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I believe in you. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> - Clarence Salisbury </em>
</p>
<p>I study it for a moment. The name looks familiar. Then I remember. Salisbury: Nicodemus said that was the name of the Mage’s wife. Lucy Salisbury. Maybe I’ll ask Penny’s parents about her. Try to find out what happened to her in this world.</p>
<p>The wind is rising with the sun and it’s cold up here on the wall. I tuck the book carefully into my duffel coat. Then my wings spread and I’m soaring over the wall and back towards Mummers House.</p>
<p>Baz is still asleep. I climb back into the bed, careful not to disturb him. He turns towards me in his sleep and winds his arms around me, pulling me closer. His skin is cool; I snuggle closer to him, giving him my heat.</p>
<p>“Snow,” he murmurs into my hair. I push my head under his chin, breathing in the scent of him. The wind is whistling around our tower, but it’s warm in here with Baz.</p>
<p>Outside the window, I think I hear the faint sound of bells on the wind.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>One you're done cursing my name, come find me on <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/blog/phoxphyre">Tumblr</a>.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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